


Turn of the Page III

by moonphase9



Series: Death Note: Turn of the Page [3]
Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms
Genre: Accusations of child abuse, Angst, Dark Romance, Drama, Gen, Gothic, Horror, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Murder, Murder Mystery, Period Typical Bigotry, Period-Typical Homophobia, Psychological Trauma, Turn of the Screw, victorian horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonphase9/pseuds/moonphase9
Summary: The finale to the mystery of Applegate Manor.Matsuda, a poor but cheerful American boy, was sent to England to be the tutor of a pair of brothers - Matt and Mello. However, Matsuda's mind began to crack; is the house haunted by two lovers, Lawliet and Kira, who are competing for the children? Or is Matsuda slowly going insane, haunted by a dark childhood trauma and a deep secret?
Relationships: L/Yagami Light, Matt | Mail Jeevas & Mello | Mihael Keehl
Series: Death Note: Turn of the Page [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1286150
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

Despite the sunshine there was something creepy and dark about the village. It was like a little something in a pop up fairytale book, all colours and light, but ultimately it was just a paper-thin facade. Lurking in this land were monsters and witches and ghosts. Not many people were out, but those who were ignored Matsuda. It was like he was a spirit floating through the land, lost in the sidelines.

Matsuda didn’t care. He had grown to be distrusting of people in general. He did not like the ways of the people here; how they seemed to imply things and how he never seemed to be told the truth about anything.

Coming off the main street he followed a grey crooked path that led off into the woods. It seemed that the Yagami’s lived out on the very fringes of the society. Despite the full bloom of summer, the wood still managed to have a sinister atmosphere. The heavy growth of trees blocked out the sun. It became much cooler and darker within the dense, purely green vegetation. The smell of nature was almost overpowering, its sweetness made repellent.

A cottage soon appeared around the path bend. The path ended at the cottage, there was nowhere else to go. The cottage itself was homely and clean; it seemed to suit Sayu but struck Matsuda as being too small and simple for someone as glamorous and good-looking as the late Light Yagami.

Walking through the garden gate he was overwhelmed with the scent of honeysuckle. Sneezing a few times, he alerted the occupants of the house; an older, handsome lady with brunette curls and large brown eyes came out of the cottage shortly followed by Sayu. The family resemblance was strong. Sayu was clearly the daughter of this woman.

Matsuda looked at them and blushed, partially because he was Sayu’s ex-employer, partially because that was simply the affect young attractive women had on him.

“Hullo Miss Sayu and Mrs Yagami,” he called politely. “Erm, I was wondering if I could talk to you.”

Inside the cottage Matsuda was offered a cup of tea and an assortment of biscuits. He politely declined the biscuits but was grateful for the tea. It warmed the chill that had seemed to have settled into his bones. “I would like to know a little about your late son, Light. My students have been saying some unusual things...” He began without preamble.

“Everyone who visits only does so to ask about Light,” said Mrs Yagami, with something like frustration in her voice. She got up, took a photo off the fireplace frame and gave it to Masuda. He peered at it. The photograph was of a handsome gentleman. He had moustache and strong masculine features. He was wearing an army uniform.

“That was my husband,” she sighed, “Mr Yagami died in the war. He died for his country. He was a great man and provided well for us.” She looked around their cottage. It was compact but well fitted, warm and tastefully decorated. It was the home of working class people who were honest, hard-working and had done their best with what little they had.

“Where did he die?” Matsuda asked quietly, already feeling a little in awe of such a great man.

“On the shores of France,” she responded quietly. “Sayu was only a small child, though Light was a little older. I think his father’s death affected him very adversely, though that was not clear at the start. I thought Light was coping.” She sniffed slightly. “We were once the most celebrated family in this entire little town. Everyone respected us thanks to my husband’s actions and because we were a good family. Then Light became strange. He met Misa Amane, went away to Applegate,” she shook her head. “He was terribly spoiled, my son. I tried to make up for him having no father by lavishing him with love. But I think I loved him too much.” Sayu stretched out her hand and held her mother’s, causing the older lady to smile softly. Matsuda was touched by their mutual affection. “Applegate corrupted him further, I am sure. It ruined him.”

“I am sorry to bring you further hurt, Mrs Yagami,” Matsuda said, after a moment’s reflection. “I do what I do due to an emergency in Applegate. As you say, there is a corruption there. But I’m not sure what it is or how to defeat it. But I am certain it is tied up with your son’s history with the place.”

“The last time I divulged to you about Light,” said Sayu, “I lost my job.”

There was a brief but tense silence.

“I am sorry to you also Miss Sayu,” he responded with feeling, “I can see about you getting your place back at Applegate. At the time I thought I was doing the right thing, but now I understand that you were warning me. You have been the most honest person I have met here so far.” He thought back of Matt and Mello, who he was certain were lying to him much of the time, or at least withholding information about their past relationships with Light Yagami and their old tutor. It hurt him to think that they did not trust him.

Mrs Yagami and Sayu looked at each other before facing Matsuda once more. “It is forgiven,” Sayu replied, “I would rather not work at Applegate Manor anymore.”

“Why not?” He asked, tensing in his seat and feeling cold. It was clear that Mrs Yagami had no love for the Manor and considering her son’s demise it wasn’t unusual that she would encourage Sayu not to return to such a place. But Matsuda knew that that was not the reason why Sayu refused to return.

“Because of the spirits there,” she responded levelly looking him straight in the eye, daring him to mock her.

Matsuda clenched the tea cup in his hand, “who are the sprits?” he asked quickly, “why are they in Applegate? Are-are they dangerous?”

“It is Lawliet, the old tutor I am certain,” she whispered in the same hurried tones, “and I know that the other one is Light. However it is more complicated than that. Applegate was always strange, from the moment I first went there to work at age fourteen. There were...things there, things that, I believe, corrupted my brother and turned him into Kira.”

“Kira? I remember that name. You used it before.”

“Kira was the alias my brother often used. Miss Amane used to call him Kira and after she left, so did many of his unfortunate lovers. I don’t know why he asked them to call him that, but I think Kira was the thing that killed all those girls.”

“Perhaps he named himself Kira so as to distance himself from his crimes,” replied Matsuda. He looked over to Mrs Yagami. The older woman was looking out of the window into the hedgerow. He thought he could see a few tears shining on her face. His stomach churned with guilt. This wasn’t the sort of thing a mother should hear about her son.

Sayu turned to where he was looking and spotted her mother weeping also.

“Mama,” she called softly. “Mama it wasn’t Light...I’m sure it wasn’t.” Mrs Yagami did not move or show any kind of response. Sayu turned back to Matsuda. “Maybe you are right,” she continued in her normal tone, “but Light actually changed. I don’t know if he was perhaps possessed or if there was some sort of split personality happening, but I know Light wouldn’t have done those terrible things. All those women he slept with...all the...” she paused and broke off, unable to say more in the presence of her weeping mother.

Matsuda took advantage of the silence to think for a moment. He had become far more open to the idea of spirits and possession due to his time at Applegate, but he was not convinced that Light Yagami had been possessed.

By what he could tell, Light was a spoiled handsome young man with ambition. It would make sense that he was corrupted by his own evil. “ _That time I saw Matt in the hallway_ ,” he thought to himself, “ _he was completely unlike himself. I am sure he was possessed by the tutor that night. The area was frozen and it only lasted five minutes or so. Afterwards he seemed to have no recollection of the things he had said or done, though of course he may have been feigning innocence..._

 _“I don’t think the ghosts can hold onto people for a long time and it is fairly obvious when someone is possessed. Plus, what ghosts would have possessed Light? As far as I can see, Light and the tutor are the only spirits present in the Manor_. _Sayu says that there have always been ‘things’ in the Manor, but I have seen no evidence of such. Perhaps the girl is saying that in order to try and clear her brother of wrong doing.”_

“What do they want?” he queried out loud. “Why do they haunt the manor so?”

“I believe,” Sayu responded, “that my brother and the tutor are haunting the place because they are trying to complete what they were doing when they were alive. They are competing for the souls of those two little boys.” She shrugged, “in the end that’s all their relationship ever was- a competition to see who was best, who was the cleverest, who was the most influential.”

“But why were they competing over the little boys?” continued Matsuda. “I mean, why didn’t they, say, fight to see who could get the most girls, as that was what Light was good at anyway.”

Sayu smiled softly. “I never knew Lawliet that well, he was very quiet and not versed in the art of making conversation, but he was clearly disinterested in females, sexually particularly.” Both Sayu and Matsuda blushed at the term ‘sexually’. “Lawliet focused his energies on educating the two little boys and pretty much ignored everyone else, much like yourself Mr Touta.”

Matsuda blinked at her, slightly shocked. “You think I ignore people?”

She shrugged slightly, “it’s how you seem. In the time I was at Applegate with you, you didn’t talk much to any of the adults, not even Watari. You appeared very awkward around us, a lot like Lawliet. But when you were with Matt you just opened up. We would watch you sometimes from the house, when you and Matt played in the gardens. It was like you were a whole different person. You were confident and loud and knowledgeable. Then you would talk to us quietly and nervously. You seemed desperate to get away from us.”

Matsuda blushed heavily. “I suppose I was a little intimidated by you.” He answered, “it is very difficult being a stranger in a foreign land. Everyone speaks differently to me and there are new formalities and manners and etiquette that I need to learn. It is difficult.”

Sayu nodded, looking at him in wonder. Matsuda pondered if she had ever thought about what it was like from his point of view or Lawliet’s for that matter. Had everyone just assumed they were rude and anti social and not simply shy or awkward or different?

“So Lawliet was heavily invested in his students and therefore Light tried to compete for their affection?” Matsuda summarised, leading the subject away from himself. “That seems like a strange thing to do.”

Sayu was quiet for a moment, as if debating whether to say what she was thinking, before reluctantly replying, “I don’t believe Light did care about the children particularly. I think he wanted Lawliet’s attention.”

“Why?-oh.” Matsuda blushed again and Sayu looked back at her mother who looked pale and had streaks of dried tears on her face. Maybe Mr Yagami had become bored with seducing women?

“Oh, my dear Mr. Touta your tea must be getting cold,” the older woman said suddenly, getting up, “I shall get you some more tea and a slice of my cake.”

When she left the young people both moved further in their seats, leaning closer together and talking more quietly. “They were in a sort of relationship, Light and Lawliet,” Sayu whispered somewhat frantically, embarrassment of her brother’s possible homosexuality colouring her tone,“I think my brother may have even loved him in a twisted kind of way. He often spoke of Lawliet to me and usually in a positive manner, which was rare for Light, who was a very critical man. He often spoke to me of Lawliets vast knowledge. He seemed to like that Lawliet was very different to the people of our little village. I think Lawliet was a kind of escape for Light.

“However I’m not sure of Lawliet’s feelings towards Light. I’m not even sure how consensual their relationship was. I think Light was something of a bully. But I’m not sure.” She blushed and looked away from Matsuda. He had the feeling that she would not elaborate on his behalf. He would have to find out for himself. “I know that Lawliet became jealous of young Mello after Light began to associate himself more and more with the boy. Lawliet even became a little cruel to the child.”

“How so?”

“He constantly began to berate the boy, Mello couldn’t do anything right. In the end Watari took pity on him and took him under his wing whenever Light wasn’t around. I don’t think Lawliet meant to be mean, but he was.”

Matsuda remembered to when he was new at his job and how much Watari had insisted that Mello was a good little boy. “ _Well Mello isn’t a good little boy,_ ” he thought to himself, “ _maybe Lawliet had a reason for being how he was. Mello has kissed his brother in a way that is not right, has been expelled from school and still hasn’t admitted it to me and is a liar. There is more to the two little boys than even Sayu knows. The whole situation is probably darker and more twisted than any of us could imagine.”_

“What about Matt?” He asked out loud. He hoped Lawliet was not cruel to Matt also. Matt seemed so vulnerable and sweet natured. He was not as corrupted as Mello.

“Lawliet liked Matt a lot. When Lawliet and Light’s relationship began to fall apart, Matt tended to stay with Lawliet while Mello went off with Light.”

 _“Well that explains quite a bit_ ,” he thought to himself. _“It explains why he chose to possess Matt and why he chastised me for not being strong enough to protect the boy. It especially explains Matt’s views on the Greek myth I told. He believed that the Sun God should have allowed the young handsome Prince to die instead of having him linger on as a flower. And unlike Mello, he seems more inclined to view Light and Lawliet’s romance as a tragic story rather than a romantic one. Mello is the one that insists they were in love, not Matt. If Lawliet was unhappy or forced in the relationship, then Matt is reflecting Lawliet’s views._

 _“Now I just need to know why Lawliet was so unhappy, or why he allowed himself to be in such a relationship. He does not strike me as someone timid or easily bullied.”_ He thought back to the photograph with the angry Lawliet storming towards Light and Mello. No, Lawliet was definitely no lamb, he was a wolf, just as Light had been.

“When did the girls begin to die?” he asked, suddenly hitting inspiration, “before or after his relationship with Lawliet?”

Sayu thought for a few moments. “The murders began a few months before Lawliet or the boys arrived. Then, when the men began spending so much time together and we all became suspicious of them, the murders all but halted. But when the two boys arrived in the Manor, and the men fell out of favour with one another, the murders began to occur again.”

“Was Lawliet aware of Kira?”

“I think so, but he was a strange man, he was never clear about his intentions,” she blushed a little and looked embarrassed; “we all thought he was a little stupid and backwards when he first arrived. I couldn’t understand why Light liked him so much. But now, in hindsight, I’m certain that the opposite was true. I think he _was_ a clever man, just as Light always claimed. I think he worked out something about Light and while that attracted my brother and maybe was even why my brother loved him, it repulsed Lawliet and eventually got him killed.”

“That makes sense,” responded Matsuda, though he privately believed that Lawliet had committed suicide, “more sense than anything else. I will find out the truth. I need the spirits gone, their silly games away from my students. If I solve the mystery then maybe the sprits can finally rest in peace and I can train the boys in the way of being good, proper and Christian.”

He stood and she copied him. She held out her hand and he shook it. “Good luck Mr Matsuda,” she smiled, “if you can help my brother move on, please do it.

But more than anything else, please, please, _please_ be careful.”

It was late in the afternoon by the time Matsuda arrived back at Applegate. His legs were weary and the harsh sun had given him a headache. The tightness of his skin warned him that he was also sunburned. He was not happy to be back at Applegate. He did not like the building anymore. It was like Bluebeard’s Castle; a place of murder, sexual depravity and secrets.

In the cool solitude of his bedroom he closed the curtains and slumped onto his bed. “ _Maybe I should just leave,”_ he thought mournfully _. “I can’t handle this, the murder, the illicit sex, the incest. But then...then I would not be able to see Mello and Matt anymore. I wouldn’t be able to stand that. I feel like they are my responsibility. Their parents are both dead, Miss Misa seems too remote and they have possibly been abused by past role models. I can’t leave them.”_ The memory of his father towering down from the pulpit forced itself into his mind once again. _“Someone is responsible,”_ he decided _. “There is always someone responsible, someone to blame. And I blame...I blame the one person still alive who could have stopped all this.”_

Matsuda went downstairs into the drawing room and opened a bottle of scotch. He was not good at confrontation and needed some help. He swallowed two shots in quick succession. His father had drunk scotch, just before he fully converted to the True Ways of the LORD. Scotch was what men drank, or so Matsuda had always been taught to believe.

He swallowed another for good measure.

*

“Did you know Mr Yagami and Mr Lawliet were in an explicit relationship with one another?”

Watari looked at him, surprise in his eyes. Matsuda had just appeared at his side from nowhere, or so it seemed. Not to mention the shocking content of the question he had been asked so brazenly. “How did you-?” The elderly man gasped before trying to pull himself together and answer the younger man’s question. “Yes Sir, yes I did. Mr Yagami was quite a cad and-”

“Did you know they kissed in front of the boys?” Watari went to turn away so Matsuda grabbed him in a fit of passion and thereby forcing Watari to face him. “That the boys are mimicking them? Did you know that??”

“They’re just boys...they experiment. It’s doing no harm.”

Matsuda threw Watari’s arm from his grasp in disgust. “It isn’t right,” he hissed, remembering his father’s ominous words of condemnation for the Sodomites of old- surely the boys were doomed to the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah! “The boy’s very souls are at stake!” Matsuda cried; fear for their souls clenching his heart and hysteria colouring his voice, “and now Mr Yagami is after the boys again! I can’t take them outside for fear of his presence.”

Watari frowned whilst watching Matsuda. “You have been drinking,” he accused. Matsuda looked momentarily taken aback. “I can smell it on you,” the older man pushed. “Mr Touta, with respect, this really isn’t good enough. What would Miss Misa say? I don’t know how you do things in your country but-”

“Oh please!” Cried Matsuda the rage returning, “Do not try and use my difference against me! _My_ _country_? Are you serious? At least where I come from we don’t accept incest and paedophilia!”

Watari paled at the last word, “who says anything like that has happened?”

“They’re over sexualised, especially the oldest. Mr Yagami was a monster, a sexual deviant, and he and Mello used to go off together for hours at a time. Everyone was suspicious but no one did anything! Also, I know that Mr Yagami was using Mello to make Mr Lawliet jealous. And furthermore it worked! Mr Lawliet was cruel to Mello! Why would he be, if he wasn’t jealous, or didn’t think that Mello was wicked somehow?”

Watari sighed, “Mello wasn’t always well behaved for Mr Lawliet and he had a hard time controlling Mello. Mello isn’t wicked, just a little headstrong.”

“ _Really_? And was Mello ‘headstrong’ before Mr Yagami’s arrival? And what exactly do you mean by ‘headstrong’?” Watari was silent and Matsuda shook his head in disgust. “If the boys were older, maybe fifteen or sixteen then maybe, _maybe_ I could believe your argument of them being sexually curious, but at eleven and seven, are you crazy?”

Watari said nothing in response, but Matsuda could tell by his facial expression that he was thinking that the crazy one was Matsuda himself.

“I’m not crazy,” Matsuda responded too quickly, making Watari raise an eyebrow, “I’m not! I have been talking to people; I know the strange things that happened here _._ You say Light was a cad, as if he were just a bit of a jerk. I know the truth, women died Watari! They died! They killed themselves over him and because of him. And you let him stay with the children! I was told by Sayu that two servants, I believe she said they were called Takada and Akino, were both found dead in the kitchens and both were pregnant!”

“Miss Sayu is a disturbed young woman,” Watari interrupted, “I have warned you not to listen to her. She is quite mad especially since her brother’s untimely death. Her mother also has become a recluse. Both women are shunned and for good reason. The Yagami’s are bad news.”

Matsuda nodded, “yes they were bad news. But you allowed Mr Yagami here, despite your reservations of the family. How could this have been allowed to happen? Somebody should have informed Miss Misa as soon as women began to die.”

“They did not die because of Mr Yagami alone, or at least we have no proof of such! And yes both were pregnant but we could not prove that the father was Light Yagami. Both women had claimed before their deaths that a person called ‘Kira’ had impregnated them and no one knows who that is.”

“Kira? That _is_ Light Yagami! It was his alias!” Watari stood in silence so Matsuda continued, “that night, when you took me to their graves, you told me that the relationship between Lawliet and Yagami was one of obsession and perversions. You knew enough Watari, you knew enough about Light Yagami. You should have kept those boys safe.”

For a moment both men went silent, exhausted from the argument. Neither was accustomed to confrontation. Matsuda looked up, past Watari and out of the window. It was darkening outside. Suddenly a figure showed up against the glass pane.

Matsuda screamed.

“What is it?” Cried Watari, he turned behind him to see what Matsuda was screaming at.

“Light Yagami!!!” Shouted Matsuda, terror griping his heart, “my God! My God!”

The room turned dark; all Matsuda could see was Light Yagami.

The young man felt someone shaking him. It was Watari. “Calm down sir,” the man was shouting. But Matsuda couldn’t calm down. His legs turned to water and he collapsed on the ground. He had seen him- he had seen him! It was no trick of the light, it was no illusion and it was no hallucination. Light had showed up by the window, a smirk was on his face. His hair looked red in the fading sun. His skin looked tanned and smooth. He was beautiful.

But the thing that really frightened Matsuda was Light’s eyes. The eyes were not human.

They had been red.

Blood red.

Matsuda lay in bed feeling deeply depressed.

He had been dragged upstairs by Watari and two female servants. The whole time he had cried out about the evil of Light Yagami and that he needed to check on the boys. Watari had told the women that Matsuda was delirious and crazy with drunkenness. They had put him in bed and locked his door. After half an hour or so of futilely beating at his door, Matsuda had finally given up and crawled into his bed, only seeing to kicking off his shoes and jacket.

His head was spinning a little. Maybe he was drunk. He felt the red blush of familiar shame spreading up his neck and across his face. He pushed his face into his pillow.

Was he crazy? He certainly sounded crazy.

What if he was wrong and Watari was right, what kind of damage was Matsuda causing? But then...what of Matsuda was right?

“ _Well it doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong_ ,” he thought mournfully, pulling the blanket over his head, _“because in any case I am failing again. Why can’t I ever do anything right? Why am I so stupid? Why can’t I see what is happening here? Why can I never do anything right?”_ The vision of his father’s disapproving face hung in his mind. He wiped a tear away as the familiar feeling of uselessness crawled into his stomach.

He had always been a failure, a laughing stock for those around him, unsuccessful in everything but his job. And now he wasn’t even doing his job right. Matsuda thought of the boys kissing in the rain. Dear God, two males, two _brothers_ , kissing, like that! Was it all his fault?

The vision of a beautiful blond boy came into his mind once again, temporarily overriding the disagreeable face of his father. This time Matsuda did not try to banish the thought. He needed something beautiful to think on. The boy looked like a cherub. He had curly blond locks and red lips. He was beautiful, but not like Yagami, this boy was pure and innocent. That was what made him cherubic, the beauty was beyond earthly, it was ethereal, spiritual even.

Matsuda tried to remember his name, but it would not come to him. It was as if every time he actively tried to remember the boy something blocked his memories. Like a mental wall of some kind. But then, ever since arriving in Applegate and meeting Mello and Matt, the vision of the boy had been haunting him.

It made Matsuda distressed, but he couldn’t figure out why.

 _“He had been my friend once...but something happened. Something to do with father...”_ Matsuda curled up into a tighter ball under the blanket, _“that’s when I began to do things wrong all the time. I was cursed. I wanted something I couldn’t have...”_ A soft sobbing interrupted his thoughts. “ _Is that me?..no, no it isn’t...”_

Slowly he sat up and then pulled the blanket off his head. The sobbing stopped. He looked around. The room was dark now the sun had set; Matsuda was surrounded by shadows.

“Is someone crying?” he whispered to the darkness. He was suddenly overcome with the feeling that he was sharing the room with another person. A person he felt that he knew. “Lawliet...is that you? Are you crying?” He paused. Lawliet did not seem the sort of character that would cry. He seemed more like someone who would have anger simmering just under a calm facade.

Matsuda climbed out of bed and looked around. He saw nothing but definitely felt the presence of another being. It did not seem the same as when the ghosts had appeared before. The atmosphere had not changed, and though the being seemed not earthy, it did not seem to be of the ghostly kind. Whatever this thing was, it was old and Matsuda could not tell if it was benevolent or not.

“What are you?” he whispered.

Suddenly the window burst open and a strong wind flew into the room knocking over things from shelves and off the desk.

He ran and closed the window, halting the wind from getting in. From off the top of the wardrobe a box with several papers had fallen to the ground. He hunched down in the darkness and began scooping them back up and placing them in the box. He briefly wondered what they were but a flapping sound distracted him. It sounded like wings. His back stiffened. He felt a presence again, only this time it was stronger.

Slowly he looked up. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark and he could make out various shades of black and shapes in the shadows. He then looked around, blinking cautiously. Something wasn’t right.

Suddenly his breath caught in his throat. In the corner of the room was a tall shadow of something demented. “ _There was nothing in the corner before I went to bed_ ,” he thought. Matsuda remained crouched on the floor, watching closely, his eyes wide. He tried to control his breathing, which becoming heavier and beginning to shake. He sounded as if he were about to have a panic attack.

The thing did not move; it remained completely still. “ _It’s all in your mind_ ,” he thought, “ _it must be. The thing is probably some inanimate object I forgot about. Typical of me to get all scared over nothing. ”_

Slowly Matsuda got onto his feet. As he did, two, bat-like black wings stretched out from the demented figure. Matsuda fell back, a scream caught in his throat. What- what was this?? The thing was- the thing had moved! One of his hands landed in the box, tipping the papers onto the floor once more.

“Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk,” the thing chortled.

Matsuda felt like something wet and sticky was running down from his nose, but he didn’t even think to wipe it away. He was spell bound in horror by the thing in front of him. It was something alive! Something inhuman!

The moonlight shone through the clouds and burst into the room. It gave enough light to show a rictus grin etched across the thing’s head and two yellow eyes. The teeth were all razor sharp, and there seemed like there were too many in that one mouth. The eyes were bulbous and yellow.

Matsuda finally screamed and scrambled up to run to the door.

The door magically broke open, allowing him his swift escape. In the hallway, he slammed the door shut behind him. He stood gasping for air, waiting for the thing to chase after him. However, even after several minutes nothing happened. The bedroom door remained closed.

As he took in deep breaths, leaning against the wall opposite to his bedroom door, he noticed that the air was becoming hard to breathe in. The air was becoming too frigid and cold. His fingertips and nose began to feel pain as the initial shock of his bedroom faded. Slowly he looked at his hands. It was gloomy in the hallway, but he could just about see that his fingertips were turning blue.

The bedroom door began to ice over, trapping inside whatever was in there. All along the corridor frost bloomed and spread itself out.

Matsuda’s breath came out in small puffs of white.

Painfully slowly, he looked to the side. And there he was. Jet black hair standing at all ends, tall but hunched, hands shoved into pockets finishing the air of slovenliness, unnaturally pale skin, and then worst of all, the deep jet black eyes. Despite the spirit looking disinterested and messy, the eyes gave away its real feelings. The spirit was angry. The eyes were jet black molten tar, burning and bubbling with the incandescent rage of the Undead and Restless. Matsuda swore that if he looked into them for too long he would fall into Hell. He looked down at the ghost’s feet quickly.

Matsuda watched as the spirit twisted around on the spot and then began to float away. Instinctively he began to follow it. Though he felt dread and trepidation, Matsuda felt that Lawliet wasn’t going to hurt him, but rather Lawliet simply wanted him to do something. But _what_ he wasn’t sure.

They wandered into the hallway on top of the stairs which led out to the battlements and where Matsuda had been attacked by the multitude of apples. Lawliet lingered for a while as if unsure. Even his ghostly image wavered slightly, like a television screen going slightly out of focus.

 _“This is Yagami’s territory, I’m sure of it,”_ Matsuda mused _. “Something must have happened here between the pair.”_

Nonetheless Lawliet continued, floating down the stairs and leading Matsuda outside. Once a sensible distance from the house, Lawliet looked back over towards Matsuda, who himself braved looking at Lawliet’s face. His long fringe covered his eyes, but Matsuda still could feel them burning. Lawliet pointed to the battlements, the same one where Matsuda had first seen Light.

There was a figure up there!

Matsuda gaped and strained his eyes. “Who-?” he began but a horrific scream ripped through his question and the figure suddenly fell backwards from the battlements.

Matsuda cried out and ran towards where the body had hit the ground with a sickening thump. He did not notice the small, fair figure that had been standing a few feet away from where he had been standing. Lawliet had disappeared.

Running up to the body, Matsuda recognised the victim. It was none other than poor Sayu Yagami.

He dropped to his knees, ignoring the blood that was spreading out of the broken body and soaking into his clothes. “Oh God,” he muttered, tears forming in his eyes, “Oh Dear God, Sayu, poor, young Sayu.” A shaking hand reached out and touched her face. Her eyes were wide open in fear and her flesh was still warm.

He felt someone sneaking about behind him. Whirling his head around Matsuda nearly jumped when he saw Mello standing there in his nightclothes. The boy looked at him guiltily.

“What are you doing out here?” The tutor asked, sounding harsher than he intended.

Mello looked with wide eyes at the dead body that was once Sayu.

Matsuda gulped, “she’s dead, we’ll need to get Mr. Watari and call the police.” Matsuda’s eyes trailed down to what Mello was holding. “Mello, what is that in your hand?”

Mello hugged it to his chest. “It’s my notebook,” he responded, “it’s my own private one, so you must never read it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author Warning:  
> OK, so this chapter and the next are the reason why I broke this last section of the story up. Basically I want to give people warnings.
> 
> In this chapter, at the end, Mello will kiss Matsuda on the lips. It's not a snog, but with Matsuda's homophobia and the lead up to the kiss, it casts the kiss in a innapropriate light, despite the kiss itself being innocent.
> 
> I hope that makes sense.
> 
> I know it's creepy, but it's from The Turn of the Screw and is one of the things that kind of kicks off all the events. But, if that is anything that will trigger or worry you, read until the sentence:  
> "Mello smiled sleepily, “pinky swear,” he repeated before closing his eyes. His breathing became heavier and more regulated" and then just leave the rest.

“You have blood under your nose.”

Matsuda touched the area between his top lip and nose carefully. Partially congealed blood fell off onto his fingers.

“Did you have a nosebleed?” queried the blond boy, almost sounding concerned.

“Yes,” Matsuda looked up at him. “Yes, I was frightened earlier and I think it caused a nose bleed.”

“What frightened you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” So many things had frightened Matsuda in the last few hours that he wasn’t sure how his heart, or mind, were taking it. He looked back at Sayu for a moment, his mind vaguely calling him to go get Watari and the authorities already. However, the strangeness of the day so far had affected him and he was not acting his usual self. It was like he was slightly detached. At times sounds and feelings blurred and became almost incoherent; it felt as if he were under water. Perhaps he was in some sort of shock, though he was also having a feeling of déjà vu at this experience.

At that moment, a question shot through his brain like lightning bolt cutting through a storm of angry thick clouds; it was out of his mouth before he had even considered it.

“Mello...why are you outside in the middle of the night with a notebook?”

Mello’s face went curiously blank, the way it often did when he was about to lie. “I wanted to see the flowers that only bloom at night. You were the one who taught us about them,” he finished accusingly. Matsuda stood and faced him, his mind no longer focused on the dead girl just behind him.

“I said that we would go out to observe them together one night.” He responded in the tone of a frustrated parent. “It’s dangerous to come out alone. Besides this is hardly the weather to go wondering about in the dark with.”

Mello’s face went red with an anger he usually hid away, “you never let us out anymore!” he yelled suddenly. Matsuda blinked. He had never seen Mello truly angry before. The old Matsuda would have been shocked to see such a change in personality, but to the new, cynical Matsuda it simply proved to him that the angelic persona Mello adopted was a lie. Truthfully, Mello was wild and hot headed.

“It’s so boring now!” the boy continued to rage, “I can’t stand the damned boredom! School is over, and your lessons are nothing to what I had in school!! Matt and I are always in the house now, reading Leviticus and Judges and all those horrible, horrible stories about God just killing everyone! I hate it and so does Matt! And that’s why I came out by myself, because I think you are going to lock us up forever! You are like Bluebeard! You seem all nice but really you are mean and crazy!”

“What has caused this fury?” Matsuda murmured in response, seeing fit to not raise his voice. He felt strangely calm, considering all that had just been screamed at him; it was quite unlike himself. “I haven’t seen you like this before, Mello, what is wrong with you?”

“Stop talking like him,” said Mello, taking a step back from Matsuda and turning very pale. He even sounded afraid.

“Like who?” Matsuda stood, a frown marring his features. What was Mello talking about?

The boy was shaking slightly, and refused to look at Matsuda.

 _“He must be in shock_ ,” thought the tutor. _“What? Of course he is! I am so stupid!”_ He looked down himself. His trousers from the knees down were covered in Sayu’s blood; no wonder the boy could not look at him! The situation suddenly came back to Matsuda. What on earth had he been doing, mercilessly interrogating the boy? Now was not the time or the place!

“Don’t worry Mello,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. Mello’s head jerked slightly towards him, a quick, shocked response to Matsuda’s friendliness. “I know you have seen something truly awful, I should not be scolding you over something so stupid...I...I am so sorry. Please, go inside and get Mr Watari, then have one of the maids get you a hot chocolate before putting you back to bed. You may sleep with Matt tonight if you wish.” This last concession was a big one on Matsuda’s part. Since the kiss he had been keeping the boys at a physical distance from one another as much as possible.

The pale boy nodded and returned to the Manor, his notebook tucked neatly under his arm. Matsuda watched him musing over the boy’s behaviour. Mello really was quite studious. It was shocking his school expelled him, he must have been a wonderful student. It was only two more weeks until the end of summer, and Matsuda still hadn’t gotten Mello a new school. He was beginning to panic.

As soon as Mello disappeared into the house and closed the door behind him, Matsuda realised that he was alone with a dead body. He shivered. The window was still blowing occasional, powerful gusts that threatened to knock him over. He looked around warily.

Would he see Light Yagami again, with his evil red eyes? Matsuda baulked at the thought, the fear of seeing the spirit so clearly that evening was still unsettling him. What about Lawliet? That spirit was now missing, though Matsuda felt as if it were watching him.

He looked up to his bedroom window. That thing in his room was surely some kind of demon. He whimpered, _“I wonder if I can sleep in the same room as the boys? No, that’s stupid. Watari would never allow it. He doesn’t trust me anymore. He thinks I’m mad, or a drunk, or both.”_ Matsuda frowned, it hardly seemed fair, considering Watari allowed someone like Light to get close to Mello, but he was being treated with suspicion. _“It’s probably because I’m a foreigner_ ,” he thought poisonously, _“I bet if I were a handsome Englishman Watari would have more faith in me.”_

The wind blew hard, making the trees make loud whistling noises. Matsuda groaned to himself. How long would Mello take? It was frightening being alone and in the dark! He turned back to the unfortunate corpse of Sayu and let out a scream.

Her eyes, which had been wide open and staring vacantly at the floor beforehand, were now staring straight at him. Her whole body had turned to face upwards.

“S-Sayu?” He whispered after he recovered from the initial shock. “A-are you s-still alive?”

Her eyes were sightless which meant she must have been dead, but in that case, how had her body moved? Her skin was a ghastly pale, her body contorted and ruined due to the smashed bones. Dark red blood poured out of her. Pure white against the deepest red. He could not believe someone could bleed so much.

Just as he began to back away towards the house, (who said he had to stay outdoors like this waiting?) Sayu’s mouth opened.

“Sayu?”

And then she let out a blood curdling scream.

Matsuda clamped his hands over his ears. The whole world began to spin, colours blurred, sound was drowned out aside from that awful, never-ending shriek. Oh God, oh God when would it _stop_? When would the madness finally _stop_? Matsuda felt himself giving into the sheer panic he had been feeling welling up all day. The craziness with the ghosts, Kira’s eyes, the evil inside Yagami, the ghost of L waiting outside his room, the Demon with black bat wings, the death of Sayu and the blood, _all the blood_ , all the images blurred in with the ones he cherished; the boys sitting by the embankment and watching the blue bottles, the beauty of Misa Amane, Sayu and her mother offering him tea, the blonde boy offering him an apple- all were ripped up and covered in red blood, red as an apple, as red as the bricks on Applegate. Everything was poisoned. _No!_ Ruined. _No!_ And the pain would never end; never end until he was _dead_!

Someone was shaking him. “Mr Touta! Mr Touta! Quick, get help, don’t stand there gawping girl!”

Matusda opened his eyes. Watari was holding him. “Thank God,” the old man sighed, “you were screaming and shouting like a mad man. Oh Mr Touta what a terrible shock, come, come away from the body.” Matsuda was lifted to his feet (when had he fallen?) and drawn towards the house. He looked back to Sayu, she was in the old body position she was in before the scream.

What had happened? Did he imagine it all? It had been him screaming...apparently. Had he experienced some kind of episode?

Matsuda was sat down outside the front door on the steps. A maid put a blanket around him and a hot chocolate (with a liberal amount of whisky inside) was put into his hands.

Was he really going crazy?

*

The rest of the night was something of a blur to Matsuda. He felt curiously vacant. The whole night so far had been so bizarre. The police had hurled questions at him; ‘who was Sayu? ‘Why did he think she was at the castle’? And on and on.

Matsuda couldn’t answer. He hardly knew Sayu and he had no idea what could have possessed her to go the Applegate in the middle of the night and to climb up into the battlements. He overheard Mr Watari quietly explaining to the officers that Sayu was a ‘disturbed young woman’ and had been odd ever since her brother’s untimely death. For some reason the explanation of Sayu being insane riled Matsuda up. He was certain that she was not insane but rather she had seen more clearly than anyone else.

“So you heard and saw nothing before she fell from the battlement?”

Matsuda looked at the young officer who had just asked him the question.

“Um, no sorry,” he sighed, then he suddenly remembered, “wait, no, the reason I got up was because I heard crying. Soft crying, but I couldn’t quite tell where it was coming from.”

“So you went outside?” The officer sounded somewhat incredulous.

“I went outside because I needed some air,” he answered trying to keep his tone calm; he had never been a good liar before but he had learnt from watching his two protégé’s how to keep his face perfectly straight. “Then I saw Master Mello,” he continued, “we were talking, I was telling him to come inside, and then we saw Miss Sayu fall.”

Matsuda felt a little ashamed of himself because the lie had come out so easily. He normally abhorred any kind of lies, but this was a necessity. If he told the absolute truth, no doubt he would be locked away as a maniac. He would either be shipped off back to America in disgrace and shame, or even more likely, locked up in a mental institute in England for the rest of his life. He could not allow that. He needed to be in Applegate to keep the boys safe. He was the only one protecting them from the spirits and now that Sayu was dead, he had the most knowledge.

“What was Master Mello doing outside so late at night?” queried the Officer, his tone incredulous.

“The boys have been learning about _Amanida mascara_ , otherwise known as Deadly Nightshade and Mello, being an enthusiastic student, wanted to see them for himself.”

“It’s hardly inviting weather, Sir. I may need to talk to Master Mello.”

“Well, now is hardly the time. He is in deep shock and definitely needs his rest. Besides, I’ve told you the truth. Why else would Master Mello be out at night? He’s a reckless boy, sure, but aren’t all boys at his age?” Matsuda looked at the officer archly. “Unless, of course you’re actually implying that Master Mello had, somehow, something to do with Miss Sayu’s death? I may have to get Miss Misa Amane involved...”

The Officer paled. “No sir, please do not think I was casting doubt on such an illustrious family. I was simply trying to be thorough.”

“Well, that’s ok,” smiled Matsuda, still feeling bad, this time for using the family to manipulate the poor Officer, “but please, if you do come again, come in the day and in a few days, when poor Master Mello is up for talking.”

The Officer insisted that he believed Matsuda’s version and no further intrusion would be made.

The body was covered and taken away. The Police left and slowly the gawping and weeping servants went back into the house and back to bed.

Matsuda walked back in himself, not wanting to be trapped alone outside.

“Mr Touta, Matsuda, may I have a word?”

Matsuda turned to see Watari walk up to him. “Matsuda, I just wanted to say how impressed I was with you tonight, especially when dealing with that Officer.”

They stood by the front doors, Watari scrambling for his keys before locking them. Then they began to walk upstairs to the bedrooms. “Thank you,” Matsuda responded quietly.

“Considering you were inebriated earlier and then the shock of seeing the dead girl Sayu, you pulled yourself together very well and...” Watari continued to witter on but Matsuda was not paying attention. He was looking at the wide staircase they were beginning to climb up. This was the staircase he nearly fell down that day when he had caught the boys kissing and then were chased by Light Yagami’s spirit.

“Sir,” he began, interrupting Watari’s praises, “did Light Yagami die by falling down these particular set of stairs?”

“He did,” the butler responded slowly, “why do you ask?”

“How did he fall? I mean,” Matsuda shook his head, “why did he fall? Was there ice on the ground by any chance?”

Watari shook his head. “No Sir, no one actually saw Light Yagami die. But for some reason there were several apples around the fallen body of Mr Yagami. We believe he tripped on those whilst climbing up or down the stairs.”

“Apples?” cried the tutor, “why were apples on the staircase, or anywhere on the upper ground hallway?”

The old man shrugged, “it’s a mystery. I assume someone was carrying apples and dropped a few. None of us gave it that much thought.”

They stopped on top of the stairs. Matsuda looked to the side where the stairs led off to the battlements. “We should perhaps board up all the doors to the battlements, just in case,” he said and the butler readily agreed with him.

“Watari, I must go check on the boys. You understand?”

For a moment the old man looked pensive, but then it passed and he replied, “of course Sir. I’ll see you on the ‘morrow.” Then men shook hands and parted ways.

The hallways were simply lit by the odd gas light. It was creepy.

When he peeped into Matt’s room he was relieved to see the boy sleeping innocently. He crept up to him and watched him for a little while. The boy hummed and turned around, a smile on his lips. Matsuda brushed some of the boy’s hair from his forehead. _“He’s in a place much better than reality,_ ” he thought to himself.

A different scene awaited him in Mello’s room. Mello was in his night clothes still, a few candles were on, giving the room a dull light. Mello himself was looking out of the window.

“You need to go to bed young man,” Matsuda ordered.

Mello turned and looked at him, blue eyes analysing. After a few moments he did as asked.

“Can you tuck me in please?”

Matsuda went over and began to tuck him in. “I’m sorry you saw what you did tonight,” Matsuda began. “And I am sorry we argued. I will let you outside tomorrow, I promise.” He looked at the boy, “even if it rains,” he lifted his little finger, “pinky swear.”

“What is a pinky swear?”

Matsuda let out a small tired laugh, his Americans were often lost on his students. “Oh it’s just a promise, that’s all.”

Mello smiled sleepily, “pinky swear,” he repeated before closing his eyes. His breathing became heavier and more regulated.

Feeling slightly better about life in general, as well as the welfare and his relationship with the boys, Matsuda got up to leave but Mello called him back.

“What is it? I thought you were asleep.” He complained.

The boy, now suddenly looking fully awake, observed the tutor’s movements closely. A smirk appeared slowly on his red lips. “Come here, Matsuda.”

Matsuda approached, the feeling of comfort now dissipated. He sometimes disliked Mello, and this was one of those times. Mello had a way of talking that made Matsuda feel like he was a stupid fool being mocked. He sat on the bed, the boy sitting up so that they were directly facing one another.

“What is it now Mello?” Matsuda sighed, his eyes itching, “I’m very tired and unsure of where to sleep tonight...”

“Hmm, you should sleep with me.” Mello purred out his interruption in a decidedly seductive manner.

Matsuda stared and there was a moment of silence.

“What did you say?”

“That you should sleep with me,” the boy responded more pragmatically, “if you’re scared stay with me. That’s what Matt and I do.”

“I can’t sleep with you.”

“Why not?”

“Adults don’t stay with kids.”

“What?”

Matsuda sighed, feeling weary, “I mean, adults don’t stay with _children_. It isn’t proper. Not when they aren’t related. Good night Mello.”

Suddenly the boy glowered. Matsuda shuddered; that look did not suit Mello.

“Proper and in proper,” the child snarled. “I hate how society is so retarded when it comes to such weak ethics. What is natural and right is contorted by silly social dogmas. I hate it.”

“Mello, this doesn’t sound like you...”

“Doesn’t it? What I am saying is that I like to go against the rules. I like to make up my own, superior ones. I like to be naughty. _You_ think I’m naughty, I know you do, I can tell.” The boy pushed back the quilt and crawled almost seductively towards Matsuda, closing the small gap between them. “I am naughty sometimes...when I’m not allowed out, or not allowed to do the things I like, I can become naughty.”

“What naughty things do you do?” Breathed Matsuda, the boy’s face was right next to his.

“I might sneak out the house late at night, I might tell people such as Watari or aunty Misa through letter that you aren’t treating me or Matt properly, that you seem to be going quite mad, that I’m meant to be going back to school soon and I don’t think you’ll let me and that I am worried for my safety and my brother’s.”

“Is that so?” Matsuda returned, fear clawing at the back of his mind and feeling his hackles rising. “Well Mello, you are right, I _do_ know that you are not a good little boy, just as your old tutor knew, and if you go around telling such lies, I have proof that you are not a good boy.”

Then Mello chuckled. The sound of it was so low and so adult-like, Matsuda was suddenly thrown into doubt of whether or not he was _actually_ speaking to Mello and not someone (or something) else.

Outside the wind raged on. It was similar to how it raged when Light had chased them.

“Oh Matsu,” smiled the boy after he had finished his snickering, “shall I tell you what I love? Listen, it’s a secret,” the boy leaned up and whispered into Matsuda’s ear, making it tickle and raising goose pimples. “The fact that you have kept everything so interesting, I was so afraid that Mu would be boring...”

As he moved away, Matsuda was about to ask what on Earth he was talking about but was interrupted when Mello moved forward and captured Matsuda’s lips onto his own in a kiss.

The man sat still as a statue, not even breathing. The pair hardly moved.

It was short and technically chaste, but Matsuda felt like it was still very wrong somehow.

When Mello pulled away with a happy humming sound in his throat, Matsuda gaped unable to speak or respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the key questions in The Turn of the Screw was how much was the children's provocative behaviour all in the lead character's head. She was very pious and restrained, and so what may have just been a kiss, she elevated into perversion.
> 
> Or maybe the child really was possesed by a creepy spirit.
> 
> I tried to keep that energy in this story. Though it was very creepy to write and then read back over. I did think about removing it because it creeped me out so much, but I decided to keep it in the end. I think Matsuda's past trauma (which will be explored later) and his homophobia mixes into his genuine concerns about potential child abuse and that they are being haunted. I wanted to show how his fears are used against him and how they muddy the waters of whether he is the good guy or if he's an abusive bully.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matsuda's tragic past, and the type relationship Light and Lawliet shared is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very dark for the first two thirds. 
> 
> Please read with caution. 
> 
> Violence. Homophobia. Murder. The KKK.
> 
> Later Light and Kira are used interchangeably but it's on purpose.

Matsuda lifted a shaking hand and gently touched his lips.

When was the last time someone had kissed him?

Ah it was...no...

Best not think about that.

The tutor looked back down at his pupil only to find Mello fast asleep, as if nothing had happened, as if he had merely been asleep the whole time. He put out a few of the candles, for safety reasons more than anything, then slowly made his way out of the room back into the gloomy corridors. He found himself standing outside his bedroom door without even thinking about it. The ice was all gone.

Slowly he opened the door and turned on the light. There was nothing in there that shouldn’t have been. He stepped into the room and looked around before breathing a sigh of relief. Whatever that thing was, it was now gone.

 _“Was Mello trying to be seductive?”_ He wondered, shuddering at such a horrible idea _. “Or was it Light Yagami, possessing him and making him do something profane? Or was it...was it just an innocent kiss and I am the profane one for thinking so much into it?”_

He kneeled down and looked at the sheets of paper across the floor. There were neat lines on the paper, like they were ripped out of a student’s notebook. On the lines were short sentences. It looked like a long list. Rubbing his eyes tiredly he read them:

**Kiyomi Takada- is killed by Shiori Akino in a fight. 20/1/1933**

**Shiori Akino- Kills Takada then herself. 20/1/1933**

**Merrie Kenwood- falls down stairs. 28/3/1933**

**Dianne Jones- Gets beheaded in car accident. 6/5/1933**

**Greta Keller- Dies from pneumonia. 21/5/1933**

**Kyoko Farmsworth- drowns in her bath. 31/5/1933**

**Juliet Adams- she and her unborn child die during its birth. 12/6/1933**

**Halle Bullok- commits suicide through hanging. 15/6/1933**

**Linda Smith- chokes to death on her dinner 20/6/1933**

**Wendy Lidner- Leaps from the village bridge to her death. 21/5/1933**

Matsuda paled as he read the list. His heart began to pound uncomfortably, mimicking the thumping of the wind against his window. Something Sayu had told him long ago forced itself into his mind;

_“Finally,” Sayu breathed, staring at him with wide, fearful eyes, “one day, a woman called Naomi Misora, she was the bravest of us all. During the war she had worked with the police force. She was as brave and as diligent as any policemen, fireman or soldier I've ever known._

_She tried to prove that Kira was guilty. She said that the mistake of the last few girls was that they threatened Kira, whereas what we needed to do was band together, get proof of our story and then report him to the authorities. Most of us were too scared to do anything, so she investigated him alone. Whenever he was out with Mello, and he often was, especially at night," there was a brief pause. "It was apparently so they could go out hunting and having masculine bonding time… " She had then blushed and looked away, "well, that's when she would sneak into his room, to find any scrap of evidence of his crimes. She said criminals were vain creatures, and would always have some kind of trophy or record of their crimes, just for their own sadistic pleasure._

_“And, apparently she found something out._

_“I was in the pantry with the other women, when she burst in saying she knew Kira was causing all the deaths. She said she had found a notebook in his room, where all their deaths had been written down and planned._

_And just as she was about to say more, she died."_

Looking down on the list he saw one last name which looked like it had been written in haste.

**Naomi Misora.**

There was no description or time of death. It was literally just her name. Matsuda felt his stomach lurching. This was a death list. Sayu had been correct the whole time; she wasn’t delusional or insane or evil. She was telling the absolute truth. Though he had suspected for some time that she was honest, it was a fact forced upon him now. And she was dead – thrown from the turrets and lying on the floor like a broken doll.

However, she had thought that the list was proof of murder; or at least that is what Miss Misora had said. But some of these deaths were beyond human control; for example, how could Light Yagami have controlled someone dying of pneumonia?

Then there was also the strange fact that the deaths became closer and closer in date. Therefore they would have begun to arouse suspicion. All of the deaths happened in one year- the same year Light Yagami and L died. By what Matsuda understood, or at least what had been implied was that the deaths had stopped after Lights death.

But how and why?

He looked at the papers. How were these related to the deaths? How had Light managed to control or orchestrate them? And to what end?

There was something very sinister going on.

With shaking hands Matsuda picked up the papers and put them back into the box. He washed his hands for a good ten minutes afterwards. They felt sullied somehow, as if just holding them had dragged him further into this horror story than he could ever imagine, he felt like he had doomed himself.

Slowly he began to undress _. “Mello was outside with a notebook,”_ he mused fearfully. _“Is he continuing Light Yagami’s work of documenting deaths? But why? And how did he know Sayu was going to fall?”_

He put a lid on the box and wondered what to do. After a moment of thought he put the box under the bed. Too much had happened tonight. Everyone needed rest, though he thought that the chance of him sleeping in the haunted house was pretty unlikely. Nonetheless he yawned. _“I’ll show Watari the papers tomorrow... and I’ll think of what to say to Mello...after I’ve hopefully spoken to his ex-tutor...”_

Instead of putting on his pyjamas he went to the wardrobe and searched until he saw that white long-sleeved shirt again. _“It’s re-appeared.”_ He wasn’t surprised. Taking it off its hanger he pulled it on, and wearing just that and his underwear he got into bed.

The light was still on, Matsuda did not want to risk turning it off lest the monster returned _. “I need to establish contact with L_ ,” He thought, wriggling further under the warm blankets. They were comforting after being stuck outside with the wind for so long _._ He blinked slowly, his lids felt heavy _. “If I can get some sort of communication going, I can try to figure out what is happening. I am not clever enough to work it out on my own. L must have worked out the truth, and it must have killed him_.” The thought briefly passed of his own safety, but he put it aside. He needed to save the boys; that was his priority.

“You should be a detective,” a childlike voice suddenly said in his mind.

“Hm?” Matsuda eyes were closed but his head jerked. Without knowing it, he fell into sleep but instead of dreaming, he began to remember...

“A detective?” A thirteen-year-old Matsuda looked at his blond-haired friend.

“Yeah, you’re good at finding out stuff.”

Matsuda blushed under the compliment and his heart skipped a beat. “N-naw...maybe my instincts and luck work for me at times...”

The blond boy smiled before lightly chastising, “don’t put yourself down so much Matsu.”

They were in a barn yard, working together to stack up and bind the hay. It was a hot summer’s day- a yellow sun blazed in a clear azalea sky. The grass was becoming like straw under the heavy gaze of the sun and the flowers wilted. The boys were lean, slightly muscled and a little tan (Matsuda moreso) from the amount of work they did everyday on their families farms.

“How come you call me Matsu, and not Matt, like the other boys?”

Terry Aiber stopped working and blinked at his friend. “Because your name is Matsuda. It’s Japanese right? Well I like it being Japanese. It makes you more interesting.”

Matsuda analysed Terry’s blue eyes, blond hair, milky, skin and slim but muscular body which testified that the boy was just on the brink of adulthood. Terry was an All American Teen. “I wish I looked more like you,” Matsuda sighed, longing in his voice. “You look like you belong here...not like me.”

He set back to his work, feeling blue remembering all the boys who called him ‘half breed’, ‘half caste’ and ‘chink’.

Suddenly one hand grabbed his shoulder, the other cupped his face and made him look into the older, fairer boy’s face. “Don’t ever think badly about yourself, Matsuda!” Terry commanded the smaller teen this time. Matsuda simply blinked, stunned by their proximity. “Did you know,” Terry continued, “that my real name is Thierry? It’s French. I’m French American.” The blond smiled and loosened his grip on Matsuda shoulder, he showed no signs of moving further back however. “America is a melting pot. We are all Americans. I don’t like that we make people feel left out...you know? I think...” Terry blushed suddenly and his normal flowing speech became stilted with nervousness, “I think we should be more open...to different people...of different colours and race...and feelings.”

“Feelings?” Matsuda felt a little dizzy being so close to Terry. His heart was pounding and it was hard to breath. All his senses focused on Terry; on his smell, the feel of him, the warmth radiating from his body...but somehow Matsuda had listened to what the boy had said. “What do you mean feelings?”

Big blue eyes looked into Matsuda deep brown ones. They stayed close to one another, just breathing and staring. Matsuda face burned.

“You know,” Terry finally said, his breath on Matsuda face, but it felt nice, not gross like it would with anyone else, “like...feelings...like, who you love.”

Terry glanced down at Matsuda’s face for a split second before moving in- blond hairs mingling with black, pale skin on tan, red lips starting to brush together...

Then everything went black and Matsuda was falling.

Matsuda was alone in a cold dark place. His skin was clammy and the damp had plastered his wet hair onto his head. He was shivering. And he was crying. The smell of burning hit his nostrils. But it wasn’t just burning...there was a horrible smell alongside it. They were burning something, the locals, his neighbours and the friends of his father, they were burning something outside whilst whooping and screaming in joy.

Just a few hours ago it had been in anger.

Matsuda’s father had caught Aiber and himself. The boys had been separated and Matsuda thrown into...this place, but not before his father and the neighbours had damn near beaten the life out of him. He had been punched to the floor by his own father. Then they had kicked him around like a football and stomped on his head until unconsciousness had mercifully embraced him. He had heard Aiber crying out in the background...but he had been unable to help him.

Getting gingerly to his feet, wincing all the time due to the injuries they had given him, he began to push at the wooden door.

“Please!” He called, “let me out!”

He peered through a crack in the door and his body went devastatingly cold. He instantly fell silent...he barely breathed his fear ad heightened so much with that one glance.

Outside were men wearing pure white cloaks. They had white hoods over their heads and obscuring their faces. Their eyes were wide with mad hatred. They were the ones yelling and screaming like drunken thugs. He recognised some of their voices. He knew some of them were his own neighbours. Was his father out there?

Matsuda stuffed his fist into his mouth and bit down hard. They had a huge bonfire burning just a few yards down from where he was being held captive. Dear God...were they...were they going to burn him? Of course, that’s what these people did. They burned anyone who was against their ideal of purity.

He glanced down at himself. Not only was he somewhat brown skinned and part foreign but he was now also a sodomite. Or so that’s what his father had screamed at him as he had laid blow after blow onto his person.

Feeling sick with fear he looked back out to the fire. In its centre they had erected a pole, not unlike the type they would have burned witches on in Medieval times. Was that where he was to be taken? Would be set alight, whilst still alive and screaming, on there?

His eyes widened when he realised something was already burning on it. Unconsciously he began to shake his head in disbelief. His fist began to bleed but he didn’t notice. There was a person on the pole...a person who was very still and charred black...a dead person. A corpse.

And Matsuda had a good idea who it was.

He felt warmth in his trousers. He had wet himself.

He fell onto his butt in an undignified manner. His hand was still in his mouth as he began to snort and moan, rocking backwards and forwards as he did.

His mind was full of a fuzzy white noise. He could not allow his thoughts to break through...he could not allow himself to think coherently...because then he would know...he would know...he would know...

Laying down on the floor Matsuda burst into anguished sobs of pain and a deep, everlasting, uncompromising misery that would haunt him for the rest of his life, no matter how far he ran.

Matsuda opened his eyes. They felt sore and red. He had been crying in his sleep.

So that was what he had been trying to forget. How stupid of him. How would anyone forget that night? How could anyone forget that the first person, who had dared to love him despite all the odds, had been horribly beaten and murdered as a result?

Matsuda shivered with the cold. It was still night-time and he still felt exhausted. Dawn was probably just a few hours away. He needed to get some sleep. Maybe a hot drink would help. Though he could hardly see how a hot drink would cure the horror of having at least one mental breakdown, several scares, possible evidence of child grooming and witnessing two deaths in one evening (even though one death was a memory).

He sat up and nearly screamed when he saw a figure hunched up at the end of his bed. He recognised the white shirt that seemed to almost glow and the spiky black hair that screamed ‘rebellion.’

“How did you survive?” whispered a voice. It did not seem to come from the figure, but rather from the actual room itself. It bored itself into his mind so that he could not be sure if it came from the room, the person or his own head.

“Are you the room?” asked Matsuda out loud, “is this,” he looked at the figure, “just a representative of you?”

“I, Lawliet, am part of everything in here.” Replied the voice by way of answer. “Even you Matsuda Touta, though I am not the only one...” Matsuda gulped and was about to ask for clarification but the ghost continued on. “I have been very polite to answer your question even though I asked one first. Would you kindly answer me now? How did you survive when poor, pretty Thierry Aiber did not?”

Shivering Matsuda leaned back against the head of the bed. “The men came to me after a while. They laughed at me, because I was crying.” He closed his eyes. He had never spoken about his experiences to anyone. “I-they pulled down my pants and underwear. They...they looked at me down there. They checked me.” He felt himself gagging a little. He saw no reason to go into detail with the ghost on how they checked him. “They saw that I was a virgin...that I hadn’t actually...” he couldn’t continue. Taking in a deep breath he opened his eyes but kept them low. “They let me go because I wasn’t a sodomite. But they used Aiber as a warning. They said Aiber was checked and had been found to be a sodomite and so that’s why he had...why he had been killed. I had to dig the grave...I had to bury what...” he choked on unshed tears and a strange blockage in his throat, “I had to bury what was left of him. It was part of my punishment.”

“And after that,” continued the ghost in a dead pan, didactic tone, “You were watched closely by your hate-filled, violent father who resented you and was ashamed of you. He turned into a mad zealot after that. You were raised to hate homosexuality. To hate yourself.” Matsuda finally looked at the ghost. He was surprised to actually be able to see Lawliet’s eyes this time; the ghost was no longer hiding them under a heavy fringe. “It isn’t a sin to be what we are,” the ghost continued. “The god of your father is a petty creature. Even if it actually existed I would go against it on purpose. Who would want to please such a monster?”

Matsuda gaped at the blasphemous words.

“You can’t mean that!” He cried, “Surely you are afraid of hell?”

“Your father beat a fear of hell into you. And now you do the same to poor Mello and Matt.” The ghost said without any malice or judgment. It simply stated a cold truth. It made Matsuda feel ashamed. “However, I have not seen nor witnessed any hell. And I am more of an authority on the Afterworld than you are,” a smile hinted at its lips, but soon vanished again. “There is nothing here but Mu. Nothingness. Emptiness. I cannot leave this place because of him.”

“Him?” repeated Matsuda while blinking stupidly, “you mean Kira?”

Lawliet nodded. “I need Matt to be safe,” he answered. “But I don’t know if anything else needs to be done also.”

“Kira is a danger to Matt?”

Again the spirit nodded.

“What about that thing I saw in here earlier? The thing with the wings?”

Lawliet scowled, it looked odd on such an expressionless face, “that hateful thing is Ryuuk. It works with Kira.”

“What I don’t understand? How? What does it do? Is it dangerous and why can I suddenly see it?”

Lawliet shook his head, “I can’t answer everything. There are rules, even in this desolate plane I am trapped in.” Without warning, the spirit crawled up Matsuda’s body with unnatural speed. It reminded Matsuda of how spiders moved. Long fingers touched his face, making him flinch in response because they were too cold. “You are interesting to me, Matsuda Touta,” Lawliet breathed down his ear. “I thought everything was doomed to remain the same, but then you came to this awful place and change began to happen.” Matsuda could feel Lawliet nuzzling his hair. The spirit didn’t seem the cuddling type, so Matsuda figured he was sniffing him, though that wasn’t a comforting thought either. However he didn’t push the ghost away. This was the closest he had been to anyone in many years, and after such a horrible dream had bought back dark memories, he was happy to at least pretend Lawliet was comforting him.

Lawliet lifted himself up and leaned over the still body of Matsuda. “You bought him in with you,” he muttered. Due to their proximity Matsuda could see that Lawliet’s eyes were not actually black, but a dark grey. They were...hypnotising.

“ _Aren’t they?”_ agreed a voice deep inside him. Matsuda blinked in confusion, jerking his head slightly.

“Do you know,” the ghost continued in his deep voice, “how long I tried to keep him out of here? Out of the Upper rooms? Away from the boys? Mello constantly tries to thwart me though he doesn’t know it. But you were the one who actually bought him in.”

At first Matsuda didn’t understand what Lawliet was talking about. He opened his mouth to ask but the skinny ghost gave him such a deprecating look that he quickly shut it again. He knew he would have to work it out alone. How would he have invited in a ghost? He thought of the few, but frightening, occasions when he had seen Kira.

Matsuda flashed back to the day Kira had chased them. He remembered the feeling of something washing over him. He remembered how he had spoken to a frightened Watari in a manner unlike himself and that he had felt so cocky when biting into the red, juicy apple. He remembered the ghost of Lawliet pushing him and that he nearly fell...but didn’t because he had grabbed the railing in time.

“You tried to kill me,” he whispered, “because I was possessed by Kira. You tried to kill me but I didn’t die. By killing me you would have kept Kira out and away because it would have been a re-enactment of his death. He would have remained banned from this place.”

The ghost was silent, simply observing Matsuda with a cold indifference. They were still too close for comfort.

Something deep inside Matsuda began to stir. Something foreign. Like a parasite he had been containing for a long time without realising it.

He gagged a little, internally cring out, “ _Light, is that you?”_

The room began to shift slightly, in subtle ways. A vase of roses appearing and disappearing on the side table. Clothes in the open closet changing. The bedsheets and quilt cover changing colour and pattern.

The spirit of L looked around with cold, calculating interest, “Time is shifting between your present and from when we were alive.” The ghost looked back at Matsuda, still too close into his personal space, “We ghosts tend to repeat what happened in our lives, which is the main reason why I did not want Kira up here. I knew something like this would occur. I am unhappy about it. I dislike you, Kira.”

“It’s _Light_!!” roared the red-eyed spirit through Matsuda’s mouth. The tutor was shocked, his throat felt it had been ripped because the scream had been so sudden and so forceful. He felt violated that the ghost inside him was using his body.

“This is partially why I hated Kira,” Lawliet carried on, “he sullied me and everyone else. He is a user and an abuser. He doesn’t care,” Lawliet looked deep into Matsuda’s eyes, and the tutor realised Lawliet wasn’t really speaking to him, but to Kira, “he doesn’t care if the persons he is hurting are women or even children. Or even someone who wanted to try and love Light.”

The thing in Matsuda paced like a caged Lion before fully taking control of Matsuda once more, wrapping Matsuda’s arms around the spirit of Lawliet, “I care about you,” said Matsuda/Kira in a sickly sweet voice, “I always liked you Lawliet. You stopped me from being bored. You were such a blessing. I love you. I do. I love you.”

He leaned down and began to nuzzle Lawliet before gently kissing his thin, pale lips. Lawliet remained still and impassive. Matsuda could feel Kira’s mounting rage and frustration despite the fact that on the outside he was still treating Lawliet with care and consideration. Kira was clearly an expert at hiding his true feelings.

“Please love me back,” Light continued, Matsuda’s lips brushing against Lawliet’s, “I know you do, just say it out loud. Then we can go, you and I, together, somewhere else. It’s me keeping you here. We can’t move on unless you just accept.”

Matsuda felt himself becoming light headed. He began to pull away from the situation mentally. He couldn’t stop Light from using his body, but he could make his mind go elsewhere. Besides, the situation was feeling increasingly private and personal. He felt odd being privy to it. He felt himself stand up before he looked down to the bed.

He could see himself pushing Lawliet on to his back. Lawliet looking vaguely annoyed, but not stopping Light.

Real Matsuda smiled softly. He felt sorry for Lawliet. It couldn’t be easy; being in love with someone you knew was a maniac.

Lawliet turned away from Light-Matsuda and to the real one watching them. He returned the soft smile, albeit briefly. “It’s why you liked Misa you know,” L said softly, never turning away from Matsuda. “Because of her blue eyes and blonde hair. It’s why you are a little in awe of Mello’s beauty as well. They remind you of Thierry’s features.”

Matsuda blinked, tears welling up. He felt his heart was actually hurting; like it was bleeding out.

“Stop ignoring me!” screamed Kira suddenly. He viciously scratched the side of his own face, but Matsuda was the one who screamed. He clutched his cheek and found it was bleeding. Kira grinned up at him. Lawliet obediently turned his face to Light’s.

“I’m sorry,” he said tonelessly, “don’t hurt the Tutor. He doesn’t understand.” He leaned up and gently kissed Light. It was chaste and short but Light looked like he could die of pure ecstasy, if he wasn’t already dead. After a moment of bliss, he leaned down and kissed Lawliet. Really kissed him. Intimately. A way Matsuda had never experienced. A ‘grown up’ kiss. He looked away, embarrassed. It was hard to tell whether Kira actually loved Lawliet, or if he was obsessed with him.

To his right he saw Light and Lawliet standing together arguing. He frowned. He could still feel them behind him, panting and kissing, rage and hate and love and lust merging together.

“ _This is...too strange_ ,” his thoughts were slow and fuzzy. “ _Why are there two lots of Light and Lawliet?”_ He walked up to the arguing couple cautiously. They did not notice him or acknowledge his presence. It was as if he wasn’t there. And unlike when they were on the bed, these two incarnations of the dead men did not appear to be solid. They were like wisps of smoke, a mere memory of times past.

Lawliet was huddled against a wall while the broader man leaned over him. Yet, because of the defiant, dark eyes, Matsuda couldn’t describe Lawliet as looking weak or fragile compared to Light. He was allowing Kira to be brutal.

“So what are you saying L?” the brunet breathed, pushing up Lawliet’s shirt and rubbing his hands across the slim, flat tummy. “Are you afraid that I’ve been cheating on you? I haven’t touched another girl since I started having you.” Kira leaned in a bit down on Lawliet’s neck, biting and sucking. Matsuda flinched. It did not seem loving or even sexual. It was as if Kira was branding Lawliet. The pale man turned away from Kira, forcing the younger man to move away slightly. “What?” Kira demanded, “What is it now? You’re so difficult, so damn changeable! I never know what you want!”

“Why are you always with Mello now?” Lawliets voice was flat, but even Matsuda picked up the slight accusatory tone in it.

Light backed away fully. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you always sneaking off with him? Why do you go in the woods together? The servants are talking you know.”

“I told you!” Spat Light in response, “I take him fishing! He’s intelligent and fun, unlike you! And Matt is a little sap I can’t stand him! I hardly want _him_ with me!” Matsuda and Lawliet both flinched when Kira insulted Matt. Lawliet said nothing. “And you,” Kira continued his diatribe, “won’t come with me anyway! You look down on me and I hate it!” He shoved Lawliet, flinging the thin man to the floor.

Light breathed heavily for a few moments before composing himself. He looked slightly regretful but hid it quickly under the handsome veneer. “You always make me act unlike myself,” he said in a calm voice, pulling Lawliet back to his feet. “I was never this angry or violent before you. I’ve always been seen as a gentleman.”

Lawliet turned to Light sharply, fire in his large eyes. “You are _no_ gentleman,” he hissed, “and I have _not_ made you violent. As long as I have known you, you have always been this way. You just cannot hide yourself from me. I know the real you and I can draw it out.” He sounded a little proud of this apparent ability. Lawliet brushed his hand against Light’s face. “But it is true that you couldn’t have always been this way. Once you were a gentleman, maybe even good.” He bought the hand away and cradled it with the other. He moved away towards the bed, his back to Light. “But not anymore. I do not want you around Mello.”

“Why? WHY??” Kira marched up to Lawliet and turned him around without giving him chance to answer. Matsuda stumbled backwards; Light’s eyes had turned from a honey brown to a deep red. “You cannot dictate to _me_ what I do!” Kira yelled, spittle flying from his mouth.

Lawliet narrowed his eyes in contempt, stirring on Light’s rage. “You think I’m doing bad things to Mello don’t you? Don’t you??” Kira lifted his fist and bought it down to Lawliet. Where the pale man did not even flinch, Matsuda closed his eyes and looked away.

“Don’t be too hard on me,” he heard Light’s rich voice murmur in his ear. Matsuda opened his eyes. The scene with Light and Lawliet was gone. Light stood behind him looking calm and handsome. Matsuda turned to face him.

“Lawliet isn’t the absolute good person you think he is,” Light’s spirit explained calmly, “he likes to push people’s buttons; he likes to see what makes us tick. And then he uses it to send us over the edge. He sent me crazy you know; crazy with lust and anger. You should also know that, despite all the sly remarks and hints, I am not a paedophile.”

“You’re worse.”

Matsuda blinked. He had changed position again. He realised that he was back in his body and on his bed leaning over Lawliet. Lawliet beneath him had been the one who had just spoken.

“Lawliet?” Matsuda muttered. He felt confused. There was soft light shining through the window, as if it was morning. They were under the blankets. The room was warm. He was in another memory, still in the place of Light.

“Mello slipped through my fingers,” Lawliet continued as if Matsuda had said nothing, “and he’s slipping through yours.”

He felt Light taking back control, forcing him to lean forward, to catch Lawliet in a kiss.

“Stop it!” he snapped, “I don’t want to! Stop forcing me!”

“It’s just so I can feel it,” whispered Kira. Matsuda felt like he was behind him, talking into his ear. It was uncomfortable but arousing at the same time. He felt his blush deepening as his shame rose. “I just want to feel Lawliet again, even for a small while. I barely had him in life. I can’t have him in death. But I cannot escape him. In you I can feel him and he can feel me. The closest to living sensation we can have. You need to stop being so afraid, this is a part of who you are. You should embrace it.”

“You’re the devil!” wept Matsuda, “not you, I don’t like you!”

Lawliet looked at him, “you are making him worse,” he announced, Matsuda assumed to Kira. “This will make him even more introverted and full of self loathing. For once do the right thing. Let him go.”

“I want to feel you,” Light groaned through Matsuda’s lips.

“Like I said, for once do the right thing. Sacrifice your own want in order to allow this man to feel safe.”

“He’ll be fine,” Kira muttered. Matsuda felt someone stroke his face, “you’ll enjoy it,” Kira promised him, “you just need to relax and...let it happen.”

Lawliet shook his head and looked away. He closed himself off, mentally at least. But with that action Matsuda found his body cooling a little and his arousal wilting. For a split second he wondered if it was because Kira was disappointed but then he realised that he could feel the spirit pulling away despondently.

Matsuda sat up slowly, Lawliet lifting himself up also.

The men looked at each other.

“You are very lonely Matsuda,” muttered Lawliet, grey eyes sympathetic. “I think Light was as well. We both were. And we found comfort in one another.”

Matsuda could see it; both Light and Lawliet together. Two men who were so strange, so beyond their peers, finally found companionship in one another.

“But Kira,” muttered Matsuda, “Kira ruined it all.”

“He took Light away from me,” Matsuda was stunned to see Lawliet’s grey eyes fill with actual tears. His face was still cold, still distant, but the emotion in his eyes could not be so well hidden.

Matsuda thought about what Light had said, that even in the afterlife he and Lawliet could not truly be together. He thought of his childhood love, the one that had lasted a few hours before death and fire had destroyed everything.

Would it be so bad to give in?

To feel what it would be like?

Surely not a sin, if it wasn’t him, but him possessed?

To just forget, for one night?

The trauma of seeing a girl die in front of him, of seeing Mello manipulated, of having conversations with ghosts and seeing monsters hiding in the shadows and of remembering the worst thing to ever happen to him… Matsuda gave in.

He allowed Light to have control. To kiss and love Lawliet as he had when they were alive. For Light and Lawliet to indulge in one another and, as their medium, feeling something of the kind of love he wished he could have.

Matsuda didn’t remember much. But he did remember Lawliet whispering in a breathy voice, “thank you for bringing Light back...”

Matsuda didn’t understand but was too tired to ask what the ghost meant.

The following morning Matsuda awoke. He was ashamed and angry with himself.

And most of all devastated. Surely he was doomed to hell now!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to remove Matsuda's internalised homophobia, even though the truth of himself and his past has been revealed. I think deep rooted prejudice,even against yourself, takes a long time to heal.

Matsuda stayed in bed all that morning, claiming he felt ill. Watari was sympathetic, believing the shock of the night before had no doubt affected him and Mello, who was also being confined to bed.

Matsuda had felt a little fretful about Mello staying in bed, considering his ranting the night previous of how much he hated being cooped up all day.

“Let Mello go outside this afternoon,” he had informed a surprised Watari, “if he wishes that is. He and Matt, as long as they stay together and don’t go too far...as long as they stay in sight of you...do you understand?”

“Of course Sir,” Watari responded in a tone that suggested he did not like being patronised, “but may I ask why you are happy for them to be outside now? For so many days you have kept them in-“

“For their studies yes,” Matsuda interrupted impatiently. “Let’s not forget Watari, that Mello has been expelled from his school, for reasons he still has not owned up for, despite the fact that it has nearly been two months. We need to keep his education up. We can’t have him apply for a new school in September and fail the entrance test can we? What kind of tutor would that make me?”

“But keeping in Matt as well?”

“The boys never do anything separate,” Matsuda glanced away. He took a fresh cup of tea Watari had bought up from off his coffee table. “Just do as I ask please Watari, to the very letter.”

The tea had now gone cold and was mostly untouched. Matsuda felt blank. Maybe he was in shock. What had they done to him last night? It certainly had not been consensual. Had they...raped him? Was it even possible? He had checked himself s soon as he had woken that morning. Other than the shame of his nightly emission there were no other signs of sexual activity. And the more he thought about it, the more he realised that he hadn’t felt or even witnessed that much the previous night. He had felt waves of pleasure, but they had been distant and not his own. The ghosts had used his body, soaking up his senses for themselves, so that what he felt was a distant echo of their own feelings and emotions.

It made him feel used and foolish for thinking he had enjoyed it or, in some way, had chosen to lose his virginity.

In the cold light of day he reprimanded himself. He was still a virgin. He was still uncertain about how sex worked, especially between two males, because much of the activity the previous night had been hidden from him. He had received the equivalents of snap shots of sex. He was still a virgin, still naive and he had been used. Even by L, whom he had felt some kinship to.

 _“They’re selfish creatures,”_ he thought _, “they think of their own pleasures and dilemma’s over everyone else’s; even the boys and mine.”_ He frowned. _“They need to be gotten rid of.”_

He cast his mind back to his father, who used to engage in exorcisms. They were uncommon and terrifying.

Matsuda eased out of the bed, feeling stiff and tired, and walked over to the window. His reflection showed that he was becoming quite pale, heavy black rings hung under his eyes from lack of sleep, and his hair, still too long, was in complete disarray.

He ignored the disconcerting image of himself and distracted himself momentarily with thoughts on the weather. September was coming on fast, already the blackberries were darkening and the days were becoming grey and dull. The crows were cawing loudly, black feathered fiends flying across the landscape like ominous omens of things to come. Matsuda had begun writing letters to schools, asking if there were places free. He doubted he would get Mello into one as prestigious as his previous school. But that was hardly Matsuda’s fault now was it?

He touched the glass with his finger tips. Would he follow his father’s advice on exorcisms? He remembered how they were done. The memories of screaming victims thrashing and writhing on the floor as his father cried out texts from the Holy book were forever burned into his consciousness. “ _Dare_ _I follow my father’s lead on anything? I have so far and to what avail? The boys have become remote. They no longer understand me and they resent the restrictions I put on them. Besides, what kind of father was he? He killed my friend, treated me like an animal and terrified me all my childhood.”_ Matsuda felt his eyes burning. “ _But do I want to follow the advice of the hedonistic spirits who used me so abominably last night either? I don’t think I can do this alone...I haven’t the confidence or the brains. But who do I turn to? The people here are all snakes, I daren’t ask them.”_

He rubbed his arms suddenly and viciously. He felt so dirty, like a layer of fine dust had settled across his clammy skin.

Then he saw them, Mello and Matt, running about outside. His grit his teeth together. He no longer felt the same warm love towards them, he couldn’t. They lied to him. They kept secrets. Had they been laughing at him all this time? His heart burnt at the thought of such a betrayal. But one emotion that burnt harder was that of protection. He needed to save them from whatever evil the spirits were making them do. Matt was more or less ok for the moment but Mello...there was definitely something going on with Mello. L had known it, he had known more than Matsuda of that he was certain. But L had let his love, affection, desire for Light over take his fears for Mello.

“Well you come first to me Mello,” he whispered moving his hand on the glass to where Mello was. I’ll do anything to protect you, I’d even die.”

He looked over into the distance, to where the boys were heading. It was towards the orchards, where the apple trees grew. Red, juicy apples could be seen from where Matsuda stood. He scowled at the ruby spheres, they reminded him of the night before and even now his room stank of the sickly sweet juice of Applegate apples.

_Light loved apples...especially the ones from here._

Matsuda whimpered and clutched each side of his head, twisting the over long black hair in his fists.

“Go away!” He cried softly, “I hate that I know such things all because...I hate knowing anything personal about you people! It makes me sick!”

He sunk to the ground, tears beginning to fall. He hated Applegate. He hated England. And he hated that he had nowhere to go back to. He never had a home; his father had seen to that. Ever since The Incident with Aiber he had been mistreated and hated. He couldn’t go back to that farm, knowing the things those people did, knowing the murder they committed, knowing that a blond boy was buried somewhere in those great fields without even a headstone to mark his death.

Suddenly the room seemed too bright and too large. Matsuda literally dragged himself over to the wardrobe and climbed in, shutting the doors behind him. In the dark he dry heaved. His father used to do this to hi all the time as punishment. Should he speak out of turn, give the wrong look, or forget an instruction- the only things he ever really did wrong- then he would be dragged, screaming and weeping, into any available wardrobe or closet or basement or, worst of all the little shed he had been locked in the night of Aiber’s death, to sit and think of his sins. It had been terrifying, being a small boy and locked in the dark for unknowable amounts of time. He would sit in the shadows, wishing he was dead, listening to himself cry and beg to no avail. He even wet himself a number of times, which caused only further ire from his disgusted father.

He was so wrapped up in his dark memories that he did not hear the knocking on his door, now someone entering and calling his name. Matsuda was only bought back to reality when the wardrobe doors were opened and Watari fall back with a cry.

“Mr Touta!!!” The butler shouted in horror, “Matsuda, what...what?”

Matsuda raised his head and looked deep into Watari’s eyes.

He saw his reflection in them...only it wasn’t him.

Reflected in Watari’s wide and horrified eyes was the dead man Lawliet.

Matsuda couldn’t even scream. He just bowed his head and wept.

After some time, Watari inched forward and slowly put his hand on the younger man’s head by way of comfort.

Suddenly Matsuda’s head snapped up. “Where are the boys?”

“Playing outside,” said Watari in a soothing voice. Matsuda began to scramble to his feet whilst crying out, “I told you not to leave them alone Watari! Why can’t you follow instructions?”

“What? You cannot leave...Matsuda you are still in your nightclothes! You’re shoes Matsuda!”

The tutor ran deafly down the stairs, thinking the whole time, _“I saw them both together, heading towards the apple groves!”_

Outside the wind blew hard against his back. The approach of September dragged along with it grey skies and cold winter gusts. Summer was over. Matsuda shivered, ignoring the squelching of damp grass on his bare feet. All he focused on were the up-coming groves. It wouldn’t be too hard to find them.

He heard Mello before he saw him. When he recognised the low, boyish tone Matsuda immediately schooled his breathing and lowered his body, sneaking up on them, though he hadn’t planned to. As he got closer he heard snatches of their conversation.

“...you know the work needs to be done...we’ll just have to keep him occupied...doesn’t understand anyway...it’s our duty...”

“But I don’t want to...can’t you just stop? It’s not like you have to...But Matsuda...What if someone good gets hurt?...”

He saw them in the distance, Mello was wearing an attire of all black, a habit he only recently began to engage with. Matt had evidently dressed himself that morning, because he was wearing an array of violently clashing colours and patterns. From his distance, Matsuda could see that Matt was unhappy. Mello’s back faced him, so he could not tell how the older boy was feeling.

“Just take it, please,” Mello was begging holding something out in front of him.

“No!” Matt wailed backing away, “I’m sorry Mello but I hate it! I couldn’t use it before, I just couldn’t!”

“Keep your voice down, for God’s sake!”

“I’m sorry,” Matt sniffled, “I don’t like Ryuuk. He yells at me for apples and scares me at night. I don’t want any papers.”

“But I can’t do this alone.” Mello sighed heavily, “I can’t believe how selfish you are.”

“It’s not selfish! I don’t want to be Kira and you don’t have to be either. You...you are changing Mello.” Matt launched himself forward and grabbed hold of his elder sibling, “can’t we just be normal? Me, you and Matsuda, we could be a family!”

“Matsuda is no relative of mine! He’s an idiot and annoying.” Mello’s voice took on a cruel tone and Matt immediately backed away. Matsuda felt a vague stabbing in his stomach and a cruel voice inside told him that this was what he had known all along; that he was never truly liked, at least not by Mello.

“You were never like this before, before he came along...I hate you now!” Matt suddenly roared. “I hate you!”

A flock of crows rose from the tree branches in frightened flight and Matsuda ran to where the boys were. Mello had leapt upon Matt and was hitting him viciously.

Matsuda pulled him off. “Stop it Mello! What’s wrong with you?” He turned the boy around so that they faced each other. Matsuda blanched when he saw Mello’s eyes had a reddish tint to them. He began to shake the boy, “what is wrong with you? What is wrong?”

Matt ran to Matsuda and began pulling at him in an attempt to liberate his brother, but to no avail; Matsuda was too large and didn’t even notice the younger boy because all his thoughts were focused on Mello.

Suddenly the tutor was roughly pulled backwards. Mello was torn from him grip.

Matsuda looked up to see a flustered, red-faced Watari. “What are you doing Mr. Touta?” The butler roared.

Matsuda scrambled to his feet, feeling a little like a naughty school boy. “They were fighting,” he recounted, “Mello was hitting Matt.”

To Matsuda’s frustration Watari turned to the boys and asked them if what he had been told was true. Matsuda crossed his arms. He was the one in charge! Watari was completely undermining his authority! The thoughts of outrage trickled away however, when he realised the boys had not immediately answered. He stared at them

“Well, boys,” he started, “tell Mr. Watari the truth! Mello you were hitting Matt, you were both arguing.”

Matt looked from adult to adult before saying, “Mr. Touta is lying.” Matsuda felt his face turn pale. “Matsuda was the one who hit me.”

Matt wouldn’t even look at his shell shocked tutor. Instead he ran to Watari and buried his head into the man’s stomach. “I don’t want him around anymore!” He was crying, “please send him away from here. Far away!”

Rain began to fall and Matsuda’s torn and weary heart was ripped open one last time.

He fell to his knees, he had failed!

“N-no, Matt why are you doing this to me?” he felt tears falling down his face, Matt wouldn’t look at him so he turned to an ashen Mello, “why are you both so cruel to me?” He begged, “what did I do wrong? I tried so hard! I was just trying to save you, that’s all I’ve been doing all this time. How could you lie like this? I’ll be ruined...and you will not be safe. Tell the truth! Tell the truth!!”

Watari gently placed a hand on his shoulder, “Matsuda I think...”

“No!” Matsuda pulled away his shoulder, “no!! You can’t send me away!! I didn’t hit them! I would never hurt a child! It’s your fault!” Matsuda stood up, “you and Misa! You didn’t see! You didn’t watch them enough but I have and I know now!! I know!” He looked down at Matt, “is that why you want me to be sent far away? Or am I the ‘he’ that has changed Mello for the worst? What did I do to make you hate me? Answer me Matt!!”

“That is enough Mr Touta! Please, return to the house. You will not be sent away, we cannot do that without Miss Misa’s permission. But I think it might be a good idea for Matt to leave for a while.”

Matt looked up in shock, opening and closing his mouth silently like a fish trying to breath out of water. Mello however found his voice quickly and began to argue back. Matsuda was pushed by Watari, and so began to slowly walk away.

He could hear Watari trying to calm Mello down; “You will be leaving soon for school, Mello, it’ll be fine...you’ll both be fine then...”

 _“If they both leave,”_ Matsuda reasoned, “ _then at least they will not have the spirit of Kira leading them into wickedness. I will be ruined though...I probably already am.”_ Tears were drying on his shell shocked face as he re-entered the building. He took one last look back at the groves. None of them had left yet. They were probably waiting for him to be gone. _“Mello will still be under the influence.”_ Matsuda suddenly realised, _“he was expelled from school and was strange even when we first met him at the train station. I need to find out why he was expelled. If he was expelled for something normal, then maybe he will be fine, but if something strange happened, then he must be under the influence even far away. What links everything together? What is a current theme? What stands out?”_

Matsuda crashed into his bedroom, closed and locked the door behind him _, “I need to write down a list... a list of all the links...”_ he began searching in his desk drawers _, “there’s the games the children play...possession...Kira...Light..duality... sex and lies...”_ he grabbed some papers out of the drawer and paused.

“Paper,” he whispered out loud. With a hypnotised expression and dream-like slowness he got to his knees and pulled a box out of under his bed. Inside the box was the list of names Kira had written.

 _“Paper...notebooks... Light or rather Kira, wrote the names of all his victims on this paper. And Mello...Mello has a notebook. One I am never to read. And he has given some paper to Matt before, probably when we were in the car coming back from the station. Mello had handed Matt something which Matt hid under his shirt. And now Mello is trying to give him more, but Matt will not comply.”_ He scowled at the list of victims, their unfortunate deaths written with a smooth and callous hand. _“It was after touching these that I saw that demon. It is all connected I am sure. I will get the notebook tonight and, if I can, I will summon the demon to me. But then what?”_

“So I think it would be a good idea if Matt went to the City Hospital for just a few days.”

“Of course.”

“It isn’t a reflection on you in any way. It’s just for the best until he is feeling better again. It isn’t healthy, a boy saying he can see things and being covered in bruises...ones you didn’t make, I’m sure.”

“No.”

“No. No, of course you wouldn’t. And you shaking Mello, while not completely appropriate, was probably for a reason.”

“Yes.”

“So we are agreed that Matt should be allowed to leave for a few weeks?”

“Of course.”

“Matt can go? You will allow this?”

“Yes.”

“Right. Ahem. Well good. Excellent, Mr Touta. I shall go down with young Matt first thing tomorrow morning. Will you be alright with Mello?”

“Of course.”

“Very well. There will be other people here, just in case you are feeling unwell or...or unable in any way,” there was another tense pause. “Sir, are you quite well? Are- are you happy?”

From the confines of his bed, Matsuda looked up at Watari, his eyes wide and dark, his expression void of all emotion, “of course.”

Watari looked afraid and almost sick with anxiety. “Well, if you don’t mind me saying sir, you seem rather unwell. Maybe you should remain in bed for the rest of the day. Shall I call a doctor for you?”

“No thank you,” Matsuda forced a smile on his face. “Thank you for watching over the boys while I am incapacitated. What will you do with them this afternoon?”

“I thought I could maybe take them for a fishing trip out by Applegate’s lake. Unless you would like them to do some studies you have prepared?”

“No, it’s the last of the holidays. They should enjoy it.”

Watari stood awkwardly for a moment, as if wondering if he should ask, before he sat down on the chair next to Matsuda’s bed. “Sir, has Mello been accepted into any other school?”

Matsuda could hear the accusation in Watari’s voice. He wanted to know if Matsuda had actually been looking for schools for Mello to join. For some reason Watari seemed to think that Matsuda wanted to trap the children in the house with him at all times. Granted Matsuda had kept them in the house under his almost constant surveillance ever since the Kira Chase/ The Fraternal Kiss. And Matsuda had little time in between watching over the boys, giving them lessons, arranging lesson plans and dealing with psychotic spirits of the underworld.

However he _had_ , in the evenings, been calling and writing different schools trying to get Mello a place. The Amane’s good name, however, meant nothing because no one wanted a child who had been expelled for ‘unknown’ reasons.

“Nowhere reputable is willing to take him on unless they know what he did to get expelled,” Matsuda replied coldly. “So, out of desperation, I lied. I told a local private school you may know, To-oh secondary school, that he had been caught vandalising a boys’ toilet. I meet the Head Master, a Mr Mason, next week.” Matsuda looked away, his jaw clenched.

“I thank you sir,” murmured Watari, “I understand that it must have been unpleasant to lie, but it is better than causing problems for the family. At least now Mello will, at worst, be seen as a bit of a tearaway” he chuckled slightly, not noticing Matsuda wince in response. “But he can rectify that with good behaviour at his new school. Afternoon, Matsuda.”

He turned to leave when Matsuda suddenly announced, “I never used to lie you know.”

“Sir?”

Matsuda looked him in the eye, “I never used to lie. My father was very clear about the sins in the bible. He- he used to lock me up sometimes, in dark small places like cupboards and wardrobes. He did it so that I would learn what hell would feel like, dark and alone and separate from light and goodness and God. I have never lied until I came to this place.” A terse and bitter smile, “Applegate has corrupted me, just like it does everyone else.”

Watari stood for a moment, his mouth slightly open but he couldn’t think of anything to say in response. So instead he bowed and left.

After the Butler had left, Matsuda sat some time in front of his vanity mirror. He never would have had one of these at home (well, back in America, Matsuda never really felt at ‘home’ anywhere.) It wasn’t his style. And in the time he had been in England he had largely avoided it. Matsuda didn’t have high self esteem and he found it easier to stay away from mirrors.

However that afternoon, as evening slowly began to approach, he found himself staring at his reflection. His hair now reached his shoulders, it was thick and black and curling at the ends. His fringe hit the top of his eyes, which were haunted and desolate, exhausted from constant frights. Heavy bags were under his eyes, testifying his lack of peaceful sleep in the last few months. His skin was unhealthy and sallow, despite the amount of sun it received earlier that month. Matsuda was ill and shattered. His hair was ruffled and messy. He was still in his night clothes, which themselves were bedraggled and loose.

What had he become?

He had let his hair grow because the boys liked it that way.

**_"Don't cut your hair. In fact, let it grow a bit longer...You would look more like Lawliet that way."_ **

No, they had liked Lawliet’s hair. Matsuda was nothing but a cheap substitute who, evidently, they had gotten bored of and now wanted out of the house. His eyes welled up with tears. He was being rejected again.

**_Mello chuckling in a voice too baritone for his own, "don't be scared," he had said while stroking Matsuda's hair and down the side of his face."You should definitely let your hair get a little wilder...you aren't as striking but you do have his boyish charm."_ **

“Had it been Light that time in the car, possessing Mello and making him say those things? He meant that I was not as striking as Lawliet. So last night...they really had just used my body. The spirits of Light and Lawliet were using me as nothing but an inadequate substitute.”

No one loved him. No one even genuinely liked him. He was disdained by Watari and the other staff. The people of the village viewed him with distrust. Misa patronised and manipulated him. Even Lawliet had just used him...

“I am...losing my mind,” he despaired placing his head on the desk. “I don’t have long before...before they take me away or something bad happens.” Flashes of the erotica that happened to him the night before flashed through his mind unbidden and unwanted.

He gulped trying to quell the stirrings in his pyjama bottoms. _“I can’t allow myself to be aroused. I still don’t understand how I feel about yesterday night. They used my body to feel again. It was selfish of them. Yet...yet what they felt was so powerful and pure.”_

He looked back up at himself in the mirror. “Did they love each other?” he asked his reflection, “did they really? Because somewhere in all the...breaths and profanity and sweat, there was something pure. Even Light...” he frowned and turned away from the mirror and looked back on the bed. “ _There was something strange about him. He and Kira are two different entities. They seem to co-exist. It wasn’t that they were vastly different but...but it was more like a Jekyll and Hyde situation. Light and Kira were two sides of one coin. Both are attracted to Lawliet but Lawliet was only interested in Light.”_

_“Why did they show me that love? No...why did Lawliet show me that love? I’m not even sure Kira or Light were fully cognizant. Lawliet didn’t love Kira, and while only Kira was there, he wasn’t paying attention and I was able to leave mentally._

_“I was crushed back into the situation as soon as Light appeared. I was forced into feeling what they did.”_ He rubbed his arms again, remembering the feeling of electric shooting through him. “ _Lawliet wanted me to feel love. He was trying to prove something me, the fact that he and Light were genuinely attracted to one another, perhaps? Or, basing my hypothesis on what he said, he simply wanted me to...to accept how I feel about other men; to know that the feelings of love between members of the same sex are as powerful and real as normal relationships. That I could have shared that kind of love with A-”_ he stopped, his heart feeling so broken.

Why did he have to remember all of that? Part of him wanted to drown the memories away back into the dark unconsciousness. But now he couldn’t allow himself to forget again, it seemed too cruel to Aiber to just leave his memory back in the recesses of his mind. For a short time, Aiber had made Matsuda genuinely happy. Aiber deserved much better than to be forgotten.

“I could have been in love,” he whispered, looking down at his feet, “and someone could have loved me. Truly. But they didn’t allow it just because of their stupid rules governed by hatred. I don’t care! I don’t care! Light and Lawliet were in love, true love, they weren’t evil, or sinister or perverted. The love they had was probably the most positive thing about them; it’s certainly the only positive thing they’ve left behind. Other than their love, everything else is broken; broken families, broken children and dead women. Kira was destroying them. What is Kira?”

He stood and stumbled over to his bed, crawling onto it and feeling the rich sheets and heavy quilt.

 _“Today Mello’s eyes seemed to be going red, like Kira. Matt complained that he was different. It wasn’t possession, not exactly. I know now when possession happens, it is obvious. Everything is affected. But no...this is something more insidious.”_ He sat up in surprise _. “Whatever Light did, and whatever Mello is doing, it’s changing them. It’s corrupting them.”_ What could the thing corrupting them be?

 _“It must have something to do with that demon, it only makes sense. Maybe the demon is controlling them, making them right the names of victims then killing them. I need to defeat the demon in order to release Mello. To get the demon, I need the notebook.”_ He looked at the clock on his desk. It was just gone five. The boys would be finishing outside soon, and then they would come in for six o’clock supper.

Now was the time.

Carefully Matsuda opened the door to Mello’s room. The sickly sweet smell of apples made him wrinkle his nose. Mello’s room was very tidy for a young boy; for some reason Matsuda found this suspicious; Mello was wild and rough, it seemed out of character to have such a neat room.

Looking under the bed he found a box with a number of apples inside it. This was odd, but nothing that he could use to prove Mello was naughty. But then Matsuda remembered how the boy mimicked his hero Light and so he began to search across the tops of the wardrobe. Sure enough, after a moment or two, he hit upon a little book. Pulling it down he saw it was a simple black and very non-threatening notebook.

However, it was what its title read that disturbed him.

DEATH NOTE

Matsuda shuddered and pulled out the list of murdered women from his pocket. The paper inside the notebook and the paper the list was written on was the same. This book had been Kira’s, then it became Mello’s and now Mello was handing papers to Matt. “ _I’ve come across an adoptive family of murderers,”_ he thought to himself. Light was daddy, L was an impotent and reliant mommy, Mello was the forceful big brother and Matt was the obedient little brother.

Matsuda put the notebook and the papers into a little brown satchel from his university days, and continued down the hall towards Matt’s room. This bedroom was decidedly messier than Mello’s. Clothes were strewn across the floor and mismatched toys and bright childish paintings hung across the walls. Matsuda smiled a little, (Matt was adorable,) before remembering what had happened that day. The smile quickly vanished. Hurrying, he searched through the clothes and under the bed and on top of the wardrobe before finding the papers hidden inside the bottom of it.

The hiding places the boys had chosen for the death note papers were very telling; Mello mimicked Kira, Matt mimicked Lawliet. Matsuda gulped down fear as he imagined first L curled up in the bottom of his wardrobe and then poor Matt dead in the same way; face pale, traces of vomit down his mouth, dark hair hanging over pale eyelids.

The tutor shook his head and examined the papers. They were clear of any writing causing Matsuda to sigh in relief; Matt hadn’t been planning anyone’s death yet.

Suddenly feeling like someone was watching him, he anxiously placed those papers in his satchel as well before sneaking slowly downstairs, watching out for any servants.

He could hear Mello talking to Watari. The dining room door was open just a little, revealing them inside. Matt was silently eating, but Mello was as pleasant and charming as ever _. “What a facade!”_ thought Matsuda bitterly. He suddenly decided that Mello was a thug- a cretin who got angry and hit his brother. But then, Mello was damaged by Kira. Matsuda lowered his eyes, feeling guilty of his angry thoughts towards the child. Unbidden, Light’s remarks remerged in his mind:

**_“You should also know that, despite all the sly remarks and hints, I am not a paedophile.”_ **

**_“You’re worse.”_ **

“I understand now,” Matsuda whispered, assuming the spirit of Lawliet could hear him, “Light did not abuse either of the boys sexually as I had first feared. But he was training Mello to act as a second Kira persona. He was training him to be pleasant and charming on the outside, but violent and murderous in secret. How awful.”

He continued down the stairs and into the hallway. On the side he noticed several letters waiting to go out to the post the following morning. He saw one was to be sent to Misa. He took the letter and snuck outside.

It was already dark, even though it was only half past seven; another sign of approaching winter. Before going to Mello’s room, Matsuda had put on socks, shoes and a coat, but he was still in his pyjamas. He pulled his coat tightly around him to stave off the chill before walking quickly down the dirt path that was a short cut to the church. He hated being out in the dark. He had noticed that the spirits and monsters were most active in the shadowy evenings.

He kept his eyes on the path, ignoring the shadows of the trees or the rustling of creatures that ran in the dark, hunting and killing. He stopped once, when a fox’s shrill cry rang out. He gulped and went on, practically running. If Matsuda had looked up, he would have seen the shadow of a large, long-limbed and winged creature flying on after him.

He beat upon the door of the church. Rain was beginning to fall. He still had an uneasy feeling of being watched. After several minutes the priest opened the door looking torn between concerned for a member of his congregation and annoyed at being interrupted during such a terrible night and at such a late hour.

“Mr...Touta was it?”

“Yes...”

“Please come inside, my gosh.” The Priest looked up at the downpour with some confusion as Matsuda bumbled into the church. “It is coming down now,” the priest faced Matsuda jovially, “strange how the weather just turned like that. Are you alright Sir? you look most upset.”

“I need to show you these things,” the tutor took out the Death Note and showed it to the priest. In turn the theist read them through and turned quite pale.

“Th-these are...”

“All the women who died, yes. I believe Kira wrote down their names.”

“Well,” he wiped his now sweating top lip nervously, “we’ll have to give this in to the police. This is evidence of murder I expect, or at least of a sick mind who enjoyed writing the details of their deaths.”

Matsuda shook his head, his eyes wide and still shaking from cold and fear, “it’s worse than that. Please, please listen to me and don’t think I’m insane! I think that young Master Mello is following the example of Kira. He was trained to be like Kira, to seem sweet and kind and charming, but he isn’t! I am frightened for his soul, and concerned for the safety of his brother Mathew! What do I do? Everyone in the house thinks I’m nuts.”

“Why would they think this?” The Priest was alarmed, “Mr Touta? Matsuda, why would they think such a thing? Have you given them cause?”

Matsuda grabbed the shirt of the priest, a wild look in his eyes, “it’s not my fault!” He gasped, “I’m so dumb I mess up all the time and look crazy and nobody ever takes me seriously, but I’m _not wrong_. There are bad things in Applegate. There are demons, I am certain. I have seen the ghosts of Light and Lawliet. I know they were lovers. I know Lawliet killed himself and then the spirit of Lawliet pushed Light down the stairs, killing him also. He wanted to stop Kira. But Kira keeps going, through Mello.”

“Since Light Yagami’s death there have been no more suspicious deaths.”

“There doesn’t have to be, you’ve seen the list. They mark down heart attacks and accidents.”

“Like I say,” the priest attempted to sooth the younger man, sitting him down in a pew, “ it is a nasty an somewhat disturbed mind marks down these deaths, but it doesn’t mean that this individual has actually caused the deaths. How could such a thing be? It isn’t possible.”

Matsuda gulped but did not argue, “after I found the lists of the dead,” he began again, “I saw something even more terrifying than the ghosts of Lawliet or Light. I saw a monster. A being with large, bat like wings.” He fell forwards, his head in his hands, feeling ill as he recounted his terrifying vision. “It made a strange sound, almost like a chuckle or giggle. It had a vaguely human form, but was large, thin and twisted. It had large sharp teeth and it...it was grinning.”

The Priest leapt out of his seat beside Matsuda and began to pace. Matsuda stared in wonder.

“I have heard of this creature,” said the priest at length. He looked at Matsuda, doubt and fear in his eyes, “someone else already had seen the beast and came to me. I thought she was insane or somehow involved in witchcraft...”

“Sayu Yagami.”

“Yes, my God please forgive me,” he made the sign of the cross. “I judged her too harshly. We all thought she must have been communicating with demons in order to see such terrible things. What with her brother’s wild ways, and the family being so successful...it was too suspicious. Lord forgive me, did I judge her wrong?” He made the sign again before looking down at Matsuda, “And now you come to me. I thought you too were mad but...but this is too much of a coincidence. Something is wrong with Applegate. First the foreigner, then Sayu and now you, none of you have reason to hate Applegate itself, so you are not just trying to defame it. And it can’t be due to you being foreign, as I thought with Lawliet, because Sayu was English and part of this Parish.”

“What do we do? I need religious guidance! They’re souls are at stake! Souls of children!”

“And so are ours I am certain!” The Priest grabbed the Death Note from off his old seat, “we burn the books, what else can we do? We burn them and then make sure that Master Matt and Master Mello are sent far away from Applegate!”

Together the men grabbed the papers and hastened to a where many candles were lit for the souls of the dead. Grabbing one the Priest began to burn one of the papers. “The entire book needs to be destroyed.” He ordered Matsuda, who took out the book and was just about the set fire to it with a candle when-

SMAAASHH!

Every single window in the church shattered inwards. Both men fell to the floor instinctively as shards of painted glass rained down upon them. The wind blew hard and loud, snuffing out the tender lives of the small candle flames.

“The creature!” screamed Matsuda, looking up in fear and dread, “it’s here! It’s here!”

The obscene thing grinned down at them; its teeth were razor sharp and too large, like that of a shark or a piranha.

The Priest began to weep, making the sign of the cross. “It is a demon,” Matsuda heard him sobbing, “dear God no...it is a demon!”

“I’m no demon,” the thing said. It seemed impossible for a creature so deformed to be able to speak normally and in Standard English. “I am Death.” It landed gracefully on the ground and began to shuffle over to them, it’s body contorted and strange, “’I’m sort of like a Grim Reaper, hyuk, hyuk, hyuk...”

It took out and opened its own Death Note. Matsuda grit his teeth and got to his feet; no way was he dying shivering and fearful on the floor!

“So that thing,” he called out, “it belongs to you? How did two little boys get one?”

“Kira gave it to them.”

“And who gave it to Kira?”

“I did.”

“Why?” breathed Matsuda, frowning. The thing was close to them now, close enough for them to see it was pale like a corpse, and that it smelled slightly rancid, and that its clothes were black leather and covered in chains.

“I was bored,” the thing twisted its head to the side unnecessarily; “I wanted something to happen, I have been alive for eternity and nothing interesting ever happens to ones like me. One day I decided to make something happen. I had a spare Death Note, so what better than to drop it on earth, ready for any human to pick it up?

“Light was great. Just the right amount of crazy for this,” it lifted its Death Note slightly, “to completely push him over the edge. I was prepared for more boredom to resume once more after he died,” the grin widened, “but things actually got better! I love it! Hyuk hyuk hyuk! Watching all you go crazy and killing yourselves, I never knew how strange humans were; how easily broken.”

“I won’t let you destroy the boys!” Matsuda yelled at the monstrosity.

“They’re already doomed,” the creature shrugged, “Mello uses the Note and Matt will soon enough, he is already tempted by the power and he wants to impress his older brother. He chose Mello over you, don’t forget. He loves Mello and will follow his ideals over the one’s you have tried to force them to follow.” Matsuda gulped and looked down slightly. He felt remorse and regret, in his fear and anxiety he had become something like his father, stern and cruel and demanding. He had pushed Matt and Mello away from him.

“I like the boys” continued the creature in a conversational manner, “because they get me all the apples I want. I’m gonna stay at Applegate, eating fresh red apples because they are the best and watching Mello and Matt growing up and watching them using the Death Notes. I’ll watch them pass on the power of Kira,” it giggled, as if this term was amusing to it, “to other people, then them passing it to others and then on to even more. It’s gonna be fun!”

Matsuda shook his head in outrage, “I’d rather see them die than become like Kira, at least then their spirits will be pure and they can go to heaven.”

The creature chuckled and gestured to the Death Notes in his hand, “if that is how you feel, then maybe you should write their names down in this. Also, I hate to tell you, but as a creature of death, I can say with some certainty that I have seen no evidence of Heaven. All spirits go to Mu. In your tongue, that means Nothingness. You just are gone. All go the same way, evil man and great man.” It cocked its head to the side, “though, for some reason, the last few human Death Note users have gotten trapped here on earth. Their trapped spirits get pretty angry,” it laughed in a hacking, disgusting manner, “but they get creative with their anger. They use it to doom the living.”

“I will never stop believing and hoping in Heaven,” muttered Matsuda through clenched teeth. He looked up at the monster which so abhorrently stood in a church under the eyes of the saints, “if things such as you exist, then there must be Good in the universe as well! There must be something worth fighting for! Why are you here,” he stepped forward, “standing in a house of God? Devil you should leave this Holy Place!”

“I stand here because I can.” Answered the monster reasonably, “This isn’t a Holy, whatever that term is supposed to mean. This is a building, not really all that different from the ones in the village or Applegate itself. I can go anywhere. I’m not a devil and I’m not evil. I just am. As for why I am here, only to tell you the truth; Mello is already doomed to stay on Earth as an angry and bitter spirit. And there is no better place waiting for Matt or you. There is only Nothingness. Even if you burn my Death Note, it is only a spare, I will still live, and the boys will still hate you. You already failed; you never had a chance of winning.

“Goodbye, for now, Matsuda. It was fun watching you going slowly insane while trying in vain to save creatures that cannot be saved. I shall see you on the other side, no doubt. Good luck against Kira.”

It raised its wings dramatically before pushing them back down, lifting itself up before it vanished in a flash of blue light that, even in the absence of the monster, for some time continued to crackle around the church like lightening. The church pews were thrown the edges of the walls, all the remaining stained glass windows shattered, the statues of various saints crumbled and all the flames of the holy candles were blown out.

The men breathed heavily, slowly unfurling out of themselves and looking out at the debris and chaos the monster had left in its wake. “Good luck with Kira?” repeated Matsuda, “what did it mean by that?” He turned and looked at the Priest. The whites of the man’s eyes surrounded his irises and his pupils were overblown in fear.

Shakily the Priest got to his feet, “you need to leave,” he began, but Matsuda shook his head.

“I’m sorry about that,” he protested, “I never knew the monster would manifest itself here, I thought this was a safe place...”

“Leave this place!” A note of hysteria coloured the Priest’s cry, “and take that damned book with you!”

Matsuda was about to argue that he needed someone to help him, but stopped himself. The Priest was in no position to help anyone, he was too scared. Matsuda, whilst gripping tightly the Death Note, wondered if he had looked as frightened and as dishevelled as the Priest during the last few months. _“If I did then I am not surprised they all think I’m mad,”_ he thought, leaving the ruined church and walking hurriedly back to Applegate.

The wind had died down and the rain was now no more than a consistent and miserable shower. Walking down the muddy path was hard, and Matsuda felt his skin going too warm; he was getting sick again.

 _“No matter_ ,” he thought miserably, _“as long as I can commit this final act, none of that matters. I am ruined, ruined beyond repair; all I can do is save what I can.”_ He tried to forget the taunts of the monster that all was already lost.

When he entered Applegate he leant against the front door, exhausted, soaking wet and covered in heavy mud. Watari, a couple of female servants and Matt walked out of into the hall with packed suitcases. The women were helping them put on their scarves and hats. It took a little while but eventually they noticed Matsuda standing in the partial shadow of the Manor’s entrance way.

“Mr Touta...?” muttered the butler.

“I went for a walk,” Matsuda answered the unasked question.

“You shall make yourself more ill sir!”

Matsuda ignored Watari’s disapproval and instead looked down at Matt, who looked frightened and confused. “Good bye Matthew.”

“Goodbye Mr Touta,” responded the youth just as stiffly.

Matsuda glanced away from the child, feeling foolish. How was it possible that a small boy managed to make him feel so betrayed and so hurt?

 _“I’m too childish_ ,” he chastised himself, not for the first time, _“but I will be out of Matt’s life after tonight, and he shall be better for it.”_

“Get well soon,” he said to Matt before brushing past them all and going into the dining room, closing the door behind him. Matt watched his tutor for the last time, before being ushered outside and into a car set for London.

Slowly, Matsuda walked to the large, rectangular table and sat down opposite Mello who was finishing off his supper. The child looked over at Matsuda and lit up a fake smile.

“Hullo Matsuda,” he chirped, “I suppose it is just you and I now, isn’t it?”

Matsuda nodded lightly and looked down at his lap, water from the storm still dripping off his hair and into his hands.

Mello gave him a few glances between chewing his food, “you look unwell,” he commented.

Matsuda was almost amused to hear a little genuine concern despite the boy’s attempt at being laissez faire.

“ _Abomination_ ,” he heard his father say in his mind.

_Abomination._

That is what he had been called. Being discovered as a homosexual meant that in his father’s eyes he was a sick, twisted aberration of God’s beautiful and perfect creation. It made his father sick.

Matsuda looked at Mello; his blue eyes, soft skin, red lips and blond hair; the boy looked like an angel. But it was a lie. The boy was a devil. An abomination.

“I suppose tonight is going to be very dull,” the boy commented, sighing and rolling his eyes a little.

Matsuda’s hands shook as he realised what he needed to do in order to save Mello’s soul. “M-Mello,” he began. Mello looked up at his tutor and gulped. Matsuda’s eyes were hollow and his skin was sore and pallid, he was shaking all over. Mello felt an inkling of guilt, but he pushed that away; he hadn’t asked Matsuda to get so involved, to go sneaking around and finding out their secrets!

“What is it, Sir?”

There was a loud THUMP from upstairs, which made Mello jump and look up. However, Matsuda ignored it.

“Why were you expelled from school?”

There was a taut pause before, “what do you mean?”

“You were expelled from school. I know, Watari knows, we all know. Your headmaster sent us a letter, but never divulged exactly what you did.” There was another bang, this time much closer to the dining room. Mello gulped and the storm outside began to whip itself up again, only this time it seemed unnatural and forced, as if the elements were dedicating themselves to destroying the manor.

“I’ve been waiting for you to be honest all summer,” Matsuda continued, feeling hot and feverish, his speech speeding up as he became more passionate, “all summer I have been waiting and waiting, assuming you were a good boy, assuming that you would tell the truth on your own, assuming that you would not need me to bully it out of you, or coax it, that you were a strong and moral character, but now I know better don’t I? You are a liar Mello, you are a liar and I hate it! I tried so hard to get you to understand, to get you to know good, but it has destroyed me and now I am so tired. What did you do to get expelled?”

Silence.

“TELL ME!”

Mello leapt out of his seat at Matsuda’s shout, he opened and closed his mouth but was unable to say anything.

“Was it anything to do with this?” Matsuda pulled out the Death Note and placed it on the table. Mello’s face turned a ghostly pale. “Did you use it in school? Who did you hurt, your teachers, other children?”

The dining room door slammed open and in the entrance stood the silhouette of Lawliet’s spirit. Mello frowned in confusion when he looked upon it.

“It’s only a ghost,” sighed Matsuda, making Mello look at him strangely, “I need the truth Mello!”

“I-I never used the Note at school, I swear it!”

“Quick!” cried the ghost of Lawliet with something almost like panic, “Kira is coming, destroy the Death Note!” From where Lawliet stood, ice began to stretch out into the room. The two males began to see their own breath as icicles began to form on the ceiling.

“Then why were you expelled?” Matsuda ignored the ghost, “I just want the truth damn it! I just want, for once, to hear the damn truth!”

Kira, his eyes blazing a furious red, appeared at the one of the windows. Mello screamed and fell back, “stay away!” He called to the demon outside, “stay away from me! It isn’t my fault, it isn’t!”

“He is trying to get in,” Lawliet’s spirit informed them, “Kira is trying to get in. I have kept him out all this time, but you let him in tutor, that day he chased you across the land and then possessed your body, you allowed him in! You made my defences weaker! I cannot hold him off for long, you must end this.”

Matsuda nodded slightly and stepped closer to Mello, who was curling up in front of the dying fire, as if hiding from the cold as much as he was Kira’s spirit.

“What did you do Mello?” Repeated Matsuda, “tell the truth.”

Something banged into one of the windows, causing it to crack slightly.

“Shut up!” The boy yelled at Matsuda viciously, “it doesn’t even matter, it’s so stupid, stop Kira from getting in!!”

Another window cracked slightly as something was thrown at it again. Matsuda now realised that it was red apples. Kira was flinging dozens of apples at the same time at the windows. Mello whimpered.

“My defences have weakened,” stated Lawliet, “a piece of evil has infiltrated.”

Matsuda looked around the dining room and Mello watched him as if he were insane. Matsuda wondered momentarily if Mello knew Lawliet was there, but then dismissed it as unimportant.

Everywhere was iced over. The windows were cracking and it was getting darker as the fire faded. But he could not see anything particularly evil. Still he grabbed the Death Note and held it over the fire.

“Quick Mello!” He instructed, “tell me now.”

“Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk, it’s pointless I already told you.” Matsuda felt his skin crawl as he recognised the evil voice dripping with hedonistic pleasure.

He looked up and saw the Death Note demon. Its hands and feet were digging into the ceiling, so it looked like a spider, and its head was twisted all the way around so that it could see everyone below it.

“Ryuuk,” cried Mello, openly weeping, “Ryuuk please help me, Light is so angry right now...”

The pounding of apples against the windows was now insistent. It seemed like hundreds were being dashed against the glass.

Ryuuk laughed and Matsuda said, “you should never trust demons Mello.”

“Please, I think Light wants to hurt me!” The child crawled to Matsuda and hugged his legs tightly; Matsuda could feel Mello trembling, “I failed him and he wants me dead!”

Matsuda pulled Mello’s arms away and unsteadily knelt down so that he and Mello were at eye level. He kept his hands gripped to the top of Mello’s arms and he shook him slightly, “why were you expelled? Why, why is this all happening? Why did you lie??”

“I only swore,” answered Mello quietly, “I promise you, on what good is inside of me, I only swore. I said a bad word to one of my teachers. That’s why they expelled me, that’s why I came home early. I never told because it was embarrassing and stupid. I was taught that it was right to pretend to be good, but then to be as bad as you had to be in secret. I am sorry, I never meant to hurt you. Please, please help me.”

Some tension released itself from Matsuda’s body, “I hope you are telling the truth,” he hugged the boy and flung the Death Note into the flames just as one of the windows finally smashed in.

In place of the glass, Kira appeared in all his dark glory.

The ghost of Lawliet stood in front of the Matsuda and Mello.

“You killed me.” L whispered icily.

“You killed yourself!” Spat Kira, “then your spirit murdered me by dashing me down those damn stairs!”

“I am a spirit of vengeance,” replied the dark one, slowly and calmly, “I want to no longer be shackled to this place. Light was the first and only one I ever loved, but you betrayed me. You became Kira. Then my poor, weary human-self crawled into the dark wardrobe and took every anxiety pill I owned. I died, painfully, in the dark and all alone. I was foreign, and a homosexual. The villagers would have killed me and I had no one to protect me. You put me in that position. Your inequity, your arrogance and your twisted sense of what is right and what is wrong. I, the spirit of Lawliet, killed you in turn to try and bring peace to myself, but it has not happened.”

“I was Kira before you tied yourself to my fate. Blame yourself for your downfall. You tried to save the children,” the ghost smirked, “but you could not resist me. I seduced you because I could. I was bored. But you, despite your arrogance, was no better than the whores and harlots I fucked and then killed before you.” Kira was smirking, but his eyes were soft. Matsuda could imagine that somewhere inside that horrible beast a young Light Yagami was screaming for forgiveness.

Lawliet’s spirit remained motionless for some time before declaring, “the Death Note is almost completely burned, maybe now we can finally die.”

“Never!”

Matsuda gripped Mello tightly, pushing the boy’s small body into his own, making sure the boy’s face was towards his chest so that he would not witness the terrifying scene in front of them; the demon cackling on the ceiling, the darkness, the two vicious spirits of tragic lovers squaring off at one another and the ever present scent of burning leather and paper.

As he watched the calm Lawliet and the ever insane looking Kira he realised something.

“He is afraid to die.”

The spirits looked at him, which was extremely disconcerting. Four dead eyes bore into his own and he flinched and gripped Mello even tighter.

The ghosts looked back at one another; Lawliet smirked at Kira in a manner so patronising and disdainful that Matsuda was not surprised (but he was very scared) when Kira let out a huge roar, as he did the wind suddenly screamed into the room and with it pelted a thousand apples which smashed on every surface, covering the tutor and child in mush.

Kira flew into Lawliet, causing a massive flash of light. The two spirits fought, the light stretching and contracting, a whirlwind of apples blew around them. The air was heavy and sweet, making Matsuda feel drunk. He put his face into Mello’s hair and held him close, whimpering in fear. Dear God, was he going to die here, die with poor Mello in his arms?

Suddenly, time and space seemed to stop.

The bright white light smashed into a thousand sparkles, each of which disappeared, and all the apples dropped to the ground. The fireplace contained no more fire, and the Death Note was completely burned away.

Silence reigned.

Matsuda lifted his head and took in the wrecked room. He glanced up at the ceiling and saw the demon, Ryuuk, still looking down. It was grinning and seemed like it was about to laugh.

It was then that Matsuda noticed how heavy Mello felt in his arms and that, unlike earlier, Mello’s body was curiously limp.

Slowly, already knowing the truth, he pulled the child away from him and looked at his face. The blue eyes that reminded him of clear summer skies were shut. His mouth was slightly parted, but once ruby red lips were now pale.

“N-no...” he whispered as tears began to choke his speech, “please God...no...”

He jumped as something fell to his side.

It was a Death Note.

Ryuuk let out a small chuckle.


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of railed on religion throughout this story, so I wanted to include something positive about Christianity at the end. The beautiful, hopeful side to it.

**Los Angeles 1934**

Misa-Misa, the dance hall queen, returning from her month long holiday in the Caribbean, arrived back in L.A to find a black envelop awaiting her. It had been pressed down with an old fashioned seal and the stamp was evidence that it had come from England.

_Dear Mistress,_

_I am afraid to say that I am the bearer of bad news. Our newest in-house tutor has died. It as another suicide madam. There is even more bad news, more death. The death of someone you loved so please brace yourself Madam. We are not sure of everything that transpired between them but I am also afraid that your poor nephew, Mello, has also passed away. The situation is very strange and the police are baffled. But I shall attempt to explain it the best I can._

_Recently Matt became very ill, he was acting strangely and saying that he could see things others couldn’t. I am afraid to say that Mr Touta was not a healthy influence on the boys and I think he encouraged them to madness, the same madness, I regret to say, that he himself succumbed to._

_But I digress._

_Matt and I spent a week in London. When we returned to the Manor the entire downstairs was destroyed, most of the damage we think was caused by a particularly vicious storm. But that is not the worst of it; the few servants who had stayed there on the night we left were found huddled in the kitchens and every one of them had died due to heart failure._

_The dining room was the most damaged part of the house. Mr Touta was found in a kneeling position, his neck slit, we assume by his own hand as his corpse still clenched a blooded blade. In his arms lay poor Master Mello who, as far as we can tell, was suffocated._

_The police think that the unfortunate tutor had gone insane and crushed poor Mello to his chest, depriving the child of air. Afterwards, in a fit of remorse, he must have slit his own neck._

_I would not bother you normally Madam, but the funerals need to be arranged, and while I can make sure Mr Touta is tidily and quietly buried in the same manner Mr Lawliet was, Mello was your flesh and blood, and it will appear strange to your fans and to the locals if you do not look like you have arranged, or gone to, his funeral._

_I must leave this letter short Madam, as Matt (all alone now, poor child) is calling me._

_Your ever faithful servant,_

_Watari._

Misa gasped slightly and fell backward, conveniently into an arm chair. "Oh no," she whined, putting her hand to her head. "Oh dear. What a frightful bore it'll be to organise both of their funerals. TAKADA!!" She screeched.

A very harried and stressed maid laden down with several bags and suitcases entered the room. Her brown bob was stuck to her face and neck from perspiration. Her face red and swollen from the effort of carrying so much. "Yes Madam?" She ground out through gritted teeth.

"Why is my life so unfair?" Sighed Misa. "Hurry and put those away, then make me some tea."

Trying not to roll her eyes, Takada shuffled back outside to obey her mistress.

The End

Purity.

It always came down to purity.

Matsuda’s father believed he was impure, and therefore hated him and destroyed a part of Matsuda forever.

Lawliet and Light believed their relationship to be impure, and so they destroyed themselves.

The Death Note was impure, and that’s why it managed to taint every person who touched it; it’s malevolent and supernatural force eked its way through Applegate, poisoning the people, polluting the air and corrupting their souls.

And Matsuda understood that impurity would not make it to Heaven.

After Mello was accidentally suffocated in his over-protective arms, Matsuda knew that he would kill himself. The Death Note had landed to his side, the creature Ryuuk cackling whilst unnaturally hanging off the ceiling like a giant spider.

It would have been easy, just to write his name in it, but Matsuda didn’t want to sully himself anymore than what he believed himself to be. So instead he pulled over the snapped blade of a knife that had been dashed from the table onto the floor and he slit both his wrists.

His life ebbing away he mourned all the wickedness and pain he had unwittingly caused, mourned for Matt, who would now be completely alone, and waited to descend into a fiery torment.

It was sunny but cold. He was standing in an apple grove, but all the apples were withered and dying.

“Where am I?” He wondered before hearing the voice of a boy.

“Matsuda!” It called, “Matsuda!”

He turned around to see a smiling blond running towards him. “You saved me!” The boy said, a skip in his step and a little breathless, “all of us! Lawliet and Light are gone, now that Kira was ripped out of Light and sent down, they were able to leave! They wanted me to go with them but I have to stay with Matt. What are you going to do? Oh Matsuda!” he continued not giving Matsuda a chance to answer, “it was wonderful, you should have seen them, it was all forgiveness and understanding and love, pure love, erupting in a white light!”

“Who are you?” Matsuda finally asked, “Sorry, I have no idea what you’re on about. I need to go home, but how do I get there?”

The boy’s smile faltered as Matsuda spoke. “You remember nothing?” He queried, “oh, well maybe that’s for the best...will you come with me back to the house, Matt will return soon?”

Matsuda looked towards a bright red Manor in the distance and shuddered. He didn’t know why but he hated and despised it. “I cannot go there,” he replied fearfully.

Mello smiled a secret smile of understanding, “that’s alright.” He looked behind Matsuda, “I think there is someone waiting for you.”

Matsuda turned and saw an angel waiting for him further in the groves; he wore a simple white tunic with a single gold band in the middle, had blue eyes and blond hair and was smiling with his arms wide open.

“Aiber!” cried Matsuda, running towards him and forever leaving Applegate, all his insecurities and wretchedness behind.

Mello smiled, watching the young, dark haired boy that he knew was his old tutor, running to the blond child. Together they vanished into the light; their light filled with joy and acceptance and, again, love.

Mello couldn’t wait until he and Matt went together. Thanks to Matsuda making Mello an honest man, Mello now had a chance of heaven. Being a Note user, he still had a lot to make up for, even though his soul wasn’t so corrupted that it had to be split in two before he could move on. Unlike Light, whose one half would an eternity in Hell and his other half in Heaven with Lawliet, Mello had a chance of going to Heaven whole. So, until Matt’s death, he would spend his years in limbo watching over his younger brother and never allowing the Death Note to return to Applegate. After all Matt could see ghosts, and Mello wasn’t scary, so it wasn’t so bad.

With one last smile at the blue sky, he returned to Applegate ready to comfort his mourning brother.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I hope you enjoyed the series. This is one of my older stories, so if the ending isn't clear or needs improving, let me know with some constructive criticism and I'll edit it. If you liked it, please leave a kudos or comment.


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